


Proof of Ruin

by seekrest, thesemovingparts



Series: Rarely Pure and Never Simple [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Intimacy Negotiations, Peter Parker's Overwhelming Guilt Complex TM, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Michelle Jones, Protective Peter Parker, Trauma Recovery, aftermath of kidnapping, mild agoraphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/pseuds/seekrest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesemovingparts/pseuds/thesemovingparts
Summary: Michelle tapped her fingers against her thigh, biting her bottom lip before she said, “I mean… do you want to go to bed?”Peter perked up at that, staring at her for a long beat before gently putting his phone down and sitting up.“Do you mean—”“I uh— I have an idea,” Michelle began, summoning all the confidence she could build for something that used to take zero forethought at all.“Okay,” Peter said gently, certainly, as if he was hanging onto every word she said. “What’d you have in mind?”*OR: Michelle Jones liked sex. She liked sex with Peter. She wanted to have sex with Peter. She just didn't know how to make that happen while she was still relearning how to feel comfortable in her own skin.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & May Parker (Spider-Man), Michelle Jones & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Rarely Pure and Never Simple [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076090
Comments: 183
Kudos: 154





	1. Not Even This

**Author's Note:**

> Before you begin! This is a pseudo-sequel/ companion piece to [Rarely Pure and Never Simple](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27291019/chapters/66678655). We can’t make you read that first, but this one will probably be more interesting/ impactful if you’ve got the full context of that one in your head. 
> 
> For those of you that haven’t read RPANS and wanna just dive into this-- MJ is an investigative reporter who was kidnapped while in the process of uncovering crimes against enhanced people by Thaddeus Ross and Co. at the Raft. She and Morgan (who just happened to be dragged into this mess by being with MJ when she was grabbed) spent some time recovering at the Compound before moving back to the city. 
> 
> Phew. That should be enough of a summary for this to make sense, but again, there will probably definitely be references to RPANS that will make _more_ sense if you read it first. 
> 
> _Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy!_
> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Prem and Seek_

_“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”_

_― **Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous**_

*

Michelle Jones had never expected triumph to be the leading emotion accompanying a shower, but she was in the shower and she felt triumphant.

Ultimately, the triumph could have been from somewhere else, but she’d let herself down in court and she’d had a breakdown in her boyfriend’s kitchen and her life was all-around messy so, by process of elimination, it was probably the fact that she wasn’t actively freaking out while sharing the small space of Peter’s shower with him that had that glow of a win settling into her skin.

They hadn’t been properly naked around each other in quite some time, and she appreciated the way that Peter seemed to be averting his gaze as respectfully as he could, allowing her to initiate any and all physical contact between them as she lathered his curls up with shampoo and slowly rinsed it clean.

Peter’s hair was longer since the last time she had run her fingers through it.

His back was turned to her in that cramped, tiled space, so she could admire the line of his neck without self-consciousness getting in the way, and she could run her hands across the angles of his shoulder blades, and she could take a moment to focus on the way suds of shampoo trailed down his back instead of the way his gaze made her skin feel like it was burning.

Michelle’s eyes were still rimmed in red from the way she had broken down after her testimony earlier in the day, but the steam of the running shower was relieving some of the pressure on her sinuses, even if not relaxing all of the tension in her shoulders and her gut.

It had been quite some time since she was last naked in front of anyone other than her mirror, although a tank top and shorts soaked through with cold water in a concrete room had felt a lot like nudity.

But that had been different. That had been forced vulnerability and terrifying exposure and something sinister wrapping itself around bare skin.

This though, _Peter though,_ was warm water and control and autonomy. This was good, she reminded herself, in the passing moments when she forgot and had to wipe her face dry on the towel hanging over the pole for the shower curtain.

“Em?”

She opened her eyes, because apparently she had closed them at some point and apparently he had turned to face her in that time, and he was looking at her with a blatant question in the tilt of his head. It was hard to take him seriously with wet curls stuck to his forehead, but not impossible.

“I’m okay,” she replied automatically, without even really considering if it was true.

“Okay,” he nodded, having complete faith in her while still clearly wanting to make sure she understood-- “You okay and also done, maybe?”

Michelle breathed a long, full breath through her nose as she let her eyes fall to his chest. Not in a sexual way, not even entirely in an admiring way, simply as a means of reminding herself of his physical presence.

Peter Parker was no longer a memory from before, a deep-seated hope in her chest as she put all her energy into survival and protection, but a person, right there in front of her.

“Yeah,” she sighed, leaning forward just enough to lean her forehead against his sternum without touching him anywhere else. “Yeah, maybe done.”

*

She wore a pair of clean boxers from the top drawer of Peter’s dresser and one of her own sports bras that she must have left lying around at some point underneath the robe that May had given him at Hanukkah the previous year while Peter sat behind her on the bed and tried to teach himself how to braid.

An episode of some baking show was playing on the laptop in front of them, but Michelle gave up trying to focus on it as opposed to being fully unmoored by the sensation of Peter’s gentle fingers in her hair, brushing up against her scalp, the back of her neck.

She didn’t know how to tell him how overwhelming it was to be touched by him in that way, so desperately careful and loving, but it had her pulse humming and the skin of her chest flushing hotter.

Still, she didn’t know how to tell him, and so she sat there and allowed it to continue, stuck inside her own head and right on the surface of her skin.

She didn’t know how to tell him, so she didn’t.

*

Peter came by her apartment a lot during the final weeks of the trial against Ross. He was there, in her space, just existing, just _being_ , but fuck if Michelle wasn’t racking up incidents to discuss with her therapist.

The more he was around, the more obvious it became to her that her capacity for physical closeness had changed. She still preferred him coming to her rather than her having to go out into the world (which was an issue all its own that she didn’t have the energy to explore yet) but Michelle would have been lying to herself if the newness injected into every part of her life upon her return was deeply, terribly frustrating.

Even her apartment felt different in the aftermath, bigger and smaller at the same time, too warm and too cold. She spent more time than she’d care to admit pushing her bed up against the wall so she didn’t have to sleep with her back to wide, open space and then pushing it back shamefully in the morning.

One night, she caught herself trying to ration toothpaste as if she couldn’t just go to the store and buy another tube when she ran out and had to stay in the bathroom for ten minutes so she wouldn’t feel so angry when she joined Peter back out on the couch.

She knew he could see it lingering on her anyway, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.

That pocket of time, in between her testimony and Ross’s sentencing, was stressful beyond belief and Michelle wondered if, later in life when it was all a blurry memory, she would even be able to pick out all of the unpleasant details.

She hoped not.

*

“I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“Okay,” Ana replied quietly, “what do you think you _are_ ready for?”

Michelle chewed the inside of her cheek, picking at the skin between her index finger and her thumb as she avoided Ana’s gaze.

Therapy, Michelle found, was different from what she had imagined it to be now that she was back in “the real world”. The Compound was massive and orderly and constantly busy— Avengers and retired billionaires and any number of people she counted among her friends and family always coming in and out and all around.

The possibility of going to therapy then had been a refuge, a safe place for her amidst the ever running chaos of her life.

The reality of going to therapy here, now— in the confines of a Midtown office that took every ounce of her courage and will to attend, knowing that she’d be returning to an empty apartment, was a much more difficult prospect.

Especially when Ana had the bright idea of encouraging her to go out into the world, by herself, for something other than therapy.

“I don’t know,” Michelle finally said, forcing herself to stop fidgeting with her fingers and to look back to Ana.

The words were stale and uncomfortable in her mouth, just as much as the sentiment was. Michelle prided herself on _knowing_ things— it had been one of the guiding forces of her life long before she made a career of it.

There was so much she didn’t know anymore— about the world, about her life, about herself. She couldn’t even walk outside of her _apartment_ without staving off a panic attack, much less quantify how much Peter’s presence inside of it set her off in new and constantly terrifying ways.

The line between what she knew and what she didn’t, for her own fucking limits, was daunting and terrifying and so far _beyond_ what she had ever anticipated.

The worst part, something that Michelle couldn’t quite articulate to Ana as much as she desperately wanted to, was how _nice_ Peter was about the whole thing. He was accommodating to a fault, going over and above to try and figure out how he could help her in a way Michelle was wholly unused to yet held onto like the life raft it was.

It was a good thing, objectively. Michelle had dated enough assholes in her life to have better standards and to appreciate that Peter met them.

But it made this, the process of figuring out what she didn’t even know about herself anymore— things she couldn’t even begin to explain to Peter— that much more complicated.

Especially when it seemed Peter could barely stand to go a few hours without seeing her now. He hovered, in a way that would’ve unnerved her, before— constantly checking in before and after patrols and spending more nights than not in her apartment.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about it— conflicting feelings waffling back and forth that she couldn’t make sense of.

“That’s okay,” Ana said, Michelle searching for the lie in her eyes and finding none. “It’s okay to be unsure of what you want.”

“I know what I _want,_ ” Michelle replied. “I want to be able to walk outside my door without constantly looking over my shoulder, or wash my fucking dishes without shaking, or stop freaking out when my boyfriend walks into a room.”

Ana took a beat, tilting her head before she asked, “how often is Peter with you?”

Michelle could sense there was a point to this— she was established enough in own career to recognize a leading question when she saw one— but she was too distracted to figure out what that point was, shrugging before replying, “Enough.”

“As much as he was during the trial?”

Michelle swallowed, eyes finally shifting away from Ana who adjusted in her seat.

“If he’s around too much then—”

“He’s not,” Michelle said quickly, surprising herself with the fervency in her voice. One of Ana’s eyebrows raised at that, Michelle barreling forward. “He’s— I don’t know. I don’t want him to _not_ be around. I just…”

Michelle hated this, the conflict of knowing just how much she wanted to be around Peter with the innate defensive mechanism of wanting to be alone. But even being alone was fraught with more complications than she was ready to deal with, Michelle being fully able to admit to herself - much less to Ana - that she didn’t sleep nearly as well alone as she did when Peter was with her.

That this was a direct result of holding Morgan tight to her chest for a month, for safety, for survival, went without saying.

“I want to be with him, but I don’t know how to just… _be_ with him anymore,” Michelle finally said, the memory of her conversation with May from one of the first nights back at the Compound coming back to her.

Michelle had always loved Peter, but she’d never _needed_ him— something Michelle still wrestled with accepting all these months later. It was hard, to need someone, and would’ve been hard for her even before she’d been kidnapped and tortured for a month.

Ana seemed to understand, nodding once before saying, “You’re adjusting, Michelle. Just as he is. It isn’t going to happen overnight.”

“What? Going back to normal?” Michelle joked with a levity she didn’t feel, every psych class she took in college whispering to her in the back of her mind that “normal” was a thing she shouldn’t hold on to.

It didn’t take the sting out of Ana’s response, Michelle forcing herself to look at her as Ana looked at her with the utter definition of professional sympathy.

“Normal is relative.”

*

Normal might be relative, but fuck if Michelle wasn’t going to try and find it.

Her personal life might have felt like it was in shambles but that didn’t stop her from trying to find it once again in her professional life.

Michelle had always been a person with big dreams, throwing herself into her work as a way of coping with whatever latent stress that was happening in her life. It was _her_ normal, her own personal and tangible way of taking control of a situation when she felt none.

The year Michelle’s parents got divorced, she worked her ass off to make her science fair project the best that it could be— taking home first prize and finishing the school year with straight A’s as a form of comfort.

The first time her and Peter broke up, after high school when they were going to different colleges and it felt like the right thing to do, Michelle had thrown herself into signing up for every extracurricular she could find as soon as she arrived on Harvard’s campus— forcing herself to be so busy that she could try and ignore the ache in her chest from missing Peter.

The night her and her girlfriend Ophelia had their first big fight, Michelle had scrubbed every inch of the apartment that they shared— scrubbing the grout until it was cleaner than the day they moved in, washing every dish they owned and vacuuming the carpets, as if making the floors spotless could help simulate how spotless their relationship used to feel like.

To find normal in her work would mean that she needed to _find_ work, something that was becoming increasingly difficult not just because she refused to go into the office for any length of time but because of the lack of stories sent her way.

Michelle had known when she’d published that uncovering the truth about Ross‘s crimes would make it so that she was no longer writing the story, but _was_ one. What she hadn’t anticipated, something she really should have, was the assumption that she would _stop_ being the story when the trial finally ended.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that no one wanted to have her write stories about the alleged ethical issues at Oscorp’s research labs or the ongoing refugee crisis in Symkaria, but it did— all the things her editor ever threw at her ranging from mild puff pieces or personal introspective pieces of a situation Michelle was still currently living through.

“It’s fucking annoying,” Michelle whispered under her breath to Pepper, the Stark penthouse being one of the very few places she felt secure enough to venture outside for. It wasn’t lost on her that the reason for this was in direct correlation to the literal army of mechanized suits that Tony Stark still had in one of his dozens of labs, nor the fact that there was an ever present AI that would immediately alert everyone and several Avengers if there was an intruder.

Tony Stark’s tools of surveillance may have bothered her in the past but it was a gift now, wondering how much of a hypocrite this made her as Pepper smiled at her sympathetically.

“Have you thought about moving to a different paper? Taking some time off even?”

Michelle hummed noncommittally as she took a sip of her drink, eyes drifting over to where Peter and Morgan were playing some video game she hadn’t caught the name of.

“Got the Big Five sending out feelers for a memoir,” Michelle replied, catching the surprised look on Pepper’s face out of the corner of her eye before turning back to her.

“Turns out I’m the ‘hottest story’ out there.”

The expression on Pepper’s face turned sad, but not pitying— something Michelle was grateful for as Pepper said, “I can have the legal team look over the proposals, if you’d like.”

Michelle shook her head, turning her attention back to Morgan and Peter who were so thoroughly involved in the game that it had gotten May and Tony’s attention— cheering them on as Michelle pursed her lips.

“It’s not just my story to tell,” Michelle said quietly, Pepper’s shoulders sagging as she nodded in understanding. Michelle continued, “Besides, it kinda sucks that everyone seems to think my life is forever changed because of what happened to me at twenty-four.”

Michelle shifted so that she was facing Pepper as her eyes drifted down to her hands. “I don’t… I don’t want this to be the thing that defines me, you know? I want to just— go back to how it was before.”

Pepper was quiet for a beat, long enough for Michelle to look back up at her. She half-expected Pepper to give some platitude or encouragement or gentle nudge— that this tragedy would eventually be a bad memory, that she would eventually triumph and come back better than ever, that the nightmares that kept her up at night would all fade away into nothing.

What Pepper said instead was something that sunk down straight to the root, burrowing deep in her chest and hovering over her for the next few days as she ran through the wisdom of a woman who had lived with this particular kind of hell over and over again - an echo of Ana’s words that rattled around her mind.

“It won’t define you. But I’d be lying if I said you’ll ever be able to go back to how it was before.”

The conversation shifted before Michelle could find a good enough response, Pepper not even realizing how casually she destroyed Michelle’s sense of purpose now.

It wasn’t Pepper’s fault, Michelle could hear Ana’s voice in her mind - reminding her of this same thought process as Peter walked her home.

It was disorienting all the same, painful and wrong and horrifying — to think that one of the few people on the planet who knew what it was like to suffer from an experience like she did and to survive — thought “before” was a concept not even worth striving for.

Later Michelle would wonder if that was what motivated her to ask Peter explicitly to stay the night with her, to be with her — to take charge of her own narrative and fight the whispers in the back of her mind that she would forever be stuck in after, after, after.

Peter for his part wasn't surprised, only pleased - glad it seemed from the pep in his step as they walked up the stairs of her apartment that Michelle wanted him around.

She did, of course she did — even if being around him meant something different to her than it did before.

But maybe it didn’t, maybe it didn’t _have_ to - Pepper’s kind smile and sympathy ringing in the background when she took Peter’s hand into hers, the two of them long since showered and sitting on the couch as the same baking show played in the background.

It didn’t have to define her, this thing— this _history_ that the world wanted to know of. It was a before but it wasn’t _her_ before, it wasn’t her defining moment. It couldn’t be.

Michelle moved without thinking because her thoughts were too loud and too terrifying to sit alone with, pressing herself against Peter before capturing his lips in a kiss.

Peter hummed, Michelle feeling the smile on his lips and then hearing the small gasp when Michelle moved forward even more so - shifting their position from the way his arms were situated behind her so that she was on top, letting herself lay flush against him as she ran her tongue across his bottom lip.

“Em,” Peter sighed, sounding breathless in a way that still thrilled her - not just for the love and the affection and the _care_ in it but the knowledge that she could still _feel_ that.

They hadn’t had sex in months. Michelle knew it wasn’t the most important thing in a relationship and it didn’t define them and Peter was so damn understanding about everything that she believed him when he said that he didn’t expect this from her.

But it wasn’t about expectation or necessity or routine, it was a want— a want to be the same woman who used to hear _Em_ panted in her ear as Peter moved inside of her, to feel desired and loved and _touched_ in a way that only Peter Parker could.

Michelle didn’t know if she wanted to believe if she’d never be like how she was before but fuck if she wasn’t going to try her hardest to feel that way again.

She kissed Peter like he was the one giving her oxygen, desperate in a way she hadn’t kissed him in years - like the first night after they got back together, the memory of that night goading her on as she mapped his mouth with her tongue.

Peter, however, didn’t respond like he had then - stripping himself of his clothes and kissing every available part of her body before making her come with his mouth and then his hands. Peter now, Peter _after_ was hesitant - inhaling sharply when Michelle’s hands started to wander beyond his chest.

“MJ…”

“I want this,” she said, kissing him fully on the mouth once more only for Peter to gently push her back - Michelle instantly feeling like she’d crossed a line from the look on his face.

“If you— if you don’t—” she panted, Peter’s expression shifting from dazed to concerned as he sat up.

“No, not— of course, MJ. I want… I want you,” Peter said gently, Michelle already anticipating the _but_ that followed, “but I don’t want you to think we have to—”

“I can make my own decisions,” Michelle responded, a certainty she didn’t even believe herself as she stared him down. She could see Peter looked conflicted, just as Michelle summoned all her courage to say, “I _want_ this.”

Peter looked as if he didn’t believe her, maybe because Michelle wasn’t sure if she even believed herself.

She did want this— she wanted Peter, she _missed_ him. She missed the way his fingers would tangle in her hair pulling it gently then rough, just the way she liked it. She missed the way he committed so hard to making her come, finding pleasure in _her_ pleasure. She missed the long nights where he worshipped her body, making her feel as if she was the only person to ever exist in his mind or his heart or his bed. She missed the way he’d fuck her hard into the mattress, holding her tight as their bodies moved together. She missed the way he panted out her name, unraveled from her hands and her tongue as she saw the same lovely pink flush that would travel across his neck and his chest as he came.

She missed sex. She missed _him_ , that specific kind of intimacy that came from being so physically close to another person.

But even Michelle could admit that she wasn’t one hundred percent sure if she was ready.

Like most things in her life now, the decision was made for her as Peter’s phone buzzed on the side table.

He held her gaze for a moment, before he reached for it and got the same look in his eyes whenever there was an emergency in the city.

“I gotta—” Peter began but Michelle was already moving off of him, off the couch, and out of the moment.

“It’s okay,” Michelle said, Peter’s cheeks still flushed and his lips still swollen, “you should go.”

“MJ—”

“I’m fine,” Michelle said, playing with the edge of the t-shirt she had on. “I promise, I’m fine.”

Peter looked as if he was going to argue only for his phone to buzz again, groaning as he looked through the alerts. Michelle made the decision for him, moving until she grabbed the spare suit that he kept at her apartment.

She handed it to him, anticipating the hesitancy in his expression before sighing again as she said, “Peter. I’m fine. I know you have to go.”

Peter bit his lip, uncertainty all throughout his features until it dawned on her that maybe it _wasn’t_ just concern for her that had him hesitant.

Michelle and Morgan had been snatched out of thin air, right outside a movie theater —the two of them all giggles and smiles as Morgan had quoted some Pixar character Michelle had already forgotten the name of.

Ana had gone through all the steps with her already— that it wasn’t her fault, that there wasn’t anything she could’ve done to prevent it, that it was practiced and quick and most assuredly _not her fault_.

But if Michelle knew Peter Parker as well as she did-- something she held on to even for all the things she didn’t know about herself anymore-- Peter would still carry guilt over the two of them being taken.

Because Peter was supposed to have been there with them that night, cancelling last minute for some issue with Rhino across the city, swinging off as Spider-Man and leaving the two of them alone.

Michelle softened, kneeling so she was sitting across from Peter on the couch as he stared at her-- his phone now buzzing incessantly.

“I’ll be okay,” Michelle whispered, gently pushing the suit towards him. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Peter let out a laugh that was sharp and wet and tinged with the kind of worry that churned her insides, finally taking the suit from her before leaning in until he was inches away from her face.

Michelle was the one who leaned forward to kiss him— gently, softly, a reminder for the both of them that she was safe even if neither seemed to fully believe it.

“Go get em, tiger,” Michelle whispered against his lips, Peter laughing a bit more genuinely before kissing her once more and then pulling away to get ready.

Peter left, but not without looking back at her— _feeling_ his hesitancy even through the white eyes of the mask.

Michelle counted it as a win that he left.

She couldn’t make sense of the feeling that it still seemed like a loss.

*

Maybe it was an on-the-nose assessment to make of herself, but Michelle, the journalist, liked proof.

As a child, Michelle’s grandmother would take her to church on Sundays-- something that her parents weren’t all that invested in but made the free babysitter that they had in Maeve happy so they went along with it. At eight years old, upon being introduced to the pastor, Michelle Jones asked him how he knew the Bible was _true._

The adults had laughed and given vague answers about _faith_ and told her that one day she would understand. She never really did, and any lingering faith that she might have had was squandered by a month under lock and key, but she remembered that reaction to her questions and spent the rest of her young life searching for environments where her curiosity wasn’t a flaw.

She went to a STEM school, and became captain of her AcaDec team, and got herself a degree in journalism and a job reporting and a whole gamut of consequences for her pursuit of the truth.

Somewhere along the line, her desire for proof hadn’t just been solidified, it had been enhanced to a point that her therapist thought was perhaps a little toxic.

At least, Ana said, when she was directing such desires at her own recovery.

Michelle wanted normal-- a _return to normalcy_ she had said in their first meeting when asked about her goals for therapy, and Ana hadn’t exactly shot that out of the sky, but she hadn’t encouraged it either.

Apparently, Michelle was learning, the incessant need to prove to herself that she was _okay_ was actually going to hold her back in the long run.

But truth was complicated and proof of such reality may not have always treated her kindly but at least it had always been honest.

This was all to say, that Michelle hadn’t had an orgasm since late September and she needed to know she could still feel good, needed to know that part of her wasn’t broken, needed to see and feel and embody that sense of _okayness._

Because sure, there was no return to normal, but that was really only because her life had never been particularly normal to begin with. And if her life-- her superhero boyfriend and her suddenly high stakes job and her ten-year-old best friend-- had never been normal to begin with, then she might as well start dealing with her problems right there where she was standing, right?

“Okay,” she breathed quietly, and then shook her head with a grimace and the decision not to talk to herself out loud like an actual lunatic or a character in a student film.

She stared herself down in the mirror, considering how she wanted to go about this, and then pulled off her shirt in one fluid, determined motion. Hands on her hips and face dissatisfied, Michelle felt her heart sink.

She grabbed the frame of the mirror and turned it around to face the wall, because she wanted to ignore the faint white scars encircling her wrists, and the way she had managed to gain back more weight than she had lost in captivity, making her face rounder and constantly reminding her that she was _different now._

Instead, she pulled the curtains, dimmed the lights just enough to make the atmosphere in the room feel softer, and propped herself up against the mountain of pillows at the head of her bed.

It was almost awkward, this return to self intimacy after so long of simply trying not to feel terribly unsafe in her own skin, so Michelle took a deep breath in and released it slowly, let her eyes fall shut, and did her best to remember how she had ever accomplished this in the past.

As she got herself more comfortable, hand trailing across her bare stomach and nails scratching gently at her smooth skin, she started to replay some of her greatest hits across the backs of her eyelids.

Michelle Jones _did_ like sex after all.

She liked getting herself off, but even more so she liked the warmth of another person’s hands on her, liked making someone else feel good in return, liked getting fingered and particularly liked it when Peter ate her out, if only because he liked doing it so much as well.

She trailed a fingertip gently around one nipple, peeking open her eyes to watch as it grew hard, as the hair on the back of her arm stood up on end. It felt good, she realized, and so before she could overthink it too hard she added her second hand, touching both of her breasts as she tried not to pay too close attention to the way she was getting worked up for fear of jinxing it.

Michelle breathed into it, slow and relaxed, and began to feel wetness gathering between her folds, up against the fabric of her briefs.

By the time Michelle had her underwear off and her fingers smoothing across her pubic hair and towards her clit, the knowledge that this was momentous for her had faded into a mere blip on her radar rather than the only, all-consuming goal on her mind.

She conjured up memories of Peter’s tongue as she circled her clit, Peter’s hands as she slid a finger inside and curled it with practiced ease. She fantasized about the way he knew just how fast or slow she liked it, knew the way she gasped when he pulled her hair at the root, knew how to work with the thrust of her hips rather than against it.

On her stomach now, one leg hitched up and rocking against her own hand, Michelle breathed heavily into her pillow as she got closer, closer, _close_.

For a moment, right before she tumbled over the edge, she forgot about all of her physical insecurities and illogical fears and just felt _good._ And then she came with a hitch in her breath and a brief tension in her body before relief pulled all of her muscles loose.

Michelle took a moment, just laying there, to catch her heaving breath, thinking for a moment that she might have been on the verge of tears until she burst out laughing. Bright and loud and a little hysterical, because she had just fucking _done it._

An orgasm had to count towards something in recovery bingo, right?

*

She ate dinner naked in bed that night, with satisfaction warm in her belly and the remnants of laughter stuck on her tongue.

There was a certain level of confidence that came along with being able to make herself feel good after so much bad, and she was clinging to it with everything she had.

*

It was that confidence that inspired her to try again with Peter three nights later.

They were back on the couch, Michelle now officially binge-watching the baking show that filled her with an easy kind of contentment and calm. It didn’t matter that she had seen some of the seasons before or even once the available seasons had run out, she started from the beginning all over again.

If Peter noticed, he didn’t say a word-- seemingly just as content to be in her presence as she was to live in a quiet universe where the worst thing that could happen was a bread failing to prove or a pudding being too bland.

Baking however was the last thing on her mind as Peter held her, the two of them laying sideways on the couch as he trailed mindless circles along her arm.

His touch was gentle, soothing, featherlight enough that it didn’t feel suffocating. Every so often, he’d press a kiss to the top of her hair, run his hand down her arm and pull her closer. Michelle had thought he’d fallen asleep for an episode or two, confirmed when the theme music started to play and she heard the tell tale sounds of his snoring.

“Pete,” Michelle whispered, Peter’s soft breathing being his only response. She turned her head, Peter shifting himself away as she did.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked, sitting up slightly as Michelle turned around as much as she could from their position.

“You were snoring,” Michelle said with a smirk, Peter looking a little embarrassed before he yawned.

“Sorry, just— it’s been busy with Otto and everything. He’s got a new patent going and…” Peter trailed off, shaking his head before running a hand over his face.

It was then that Michelle noticed how tired he looked, the bags under his eyes more pronounced in this light and a bone weariness that clutched her heart like it was in a vise grip— especially at the thought that his exhaustion came from trying to be there for her.

“You ready to go to bed?” She asked, Peter stretching as Michelle moved until her feet were planted on the floor. Peter reached for his phone on her little side table, squinting at the screen brightness before he said, “it’s only nine.”

Michelle tapped her fingers against her thigh, biting her bottom lip before she said, “I mean… do you want to go to _bed_?”

Peter perked up at that, staring at her for a long beat before gently putting his phone down and sitting up.

“Do you mean—”

“I uh— I have an idea,” Michelle began, summoning all the confidence she could build for something that used to take zero forethought at all.

“Okay,” Peter said gently, certainly, as if he was hanging onto every word she said. “What’d you have in mind?”

Michelle answered by way of standing, extending her hand out to his. Peter immediately took it, the trust and the love in his eyes so overwhelming that Michelle had to ground herself in the moment-- not so she wouldn’t lose her courage but because everything within her wanted to throw herself on top of him, kiss him senseless and ask him to fuck her so hard she forgot her name.

But there was a humming in the back of Michelle’s mind, a buzz just as constant and as loud as the thunderous beating of her heart in her chest.

Michelle wasn’t ready for that, not yet. But she wanted to think— desperately wanted to believe at least that she was ready for this.

Peter followed her into her bedroom without a word, different yet again to how things used to be between them before.

Peter before was as chatty in bed as he was when he suited up in spandex, saving his best and dirtiest jokes for her in a way that both tickled and thrilled her.

Peter now was quiet and cautious, Michelle reconsidering for a beat if this would remind him too much of the times they used to make out with each other in high school-- tentative and unsure and awkward with their bodies and themselves.

Michelle pushed that away as best she could, letting go of Peter’s hand and crawling into bed and underneath her comforter— beckoning Peter to do the same.

Peter hesitated for a moment, his eyes boring into hers as she watched his fingers just barely skim alongside his waist.

“Keep them on, if you want,” Michelle said quietly, Peter letting out a small huff of laughter before moving to the other side of her and slipping underneath the covers until he’s laying on his side, facing her.

“I want to do what you want to do,” Peter said with a soft smile, eyes just as caring and adoring and filled with a love Michelle wasn’t sure she understood completely.

She bit her lip, heartbeat racing even more so when she noticed how Peter’s eyes drifted down to them, summoning all the courage she could muster as she said, “I want you to touch yourself.”

Peter blinked, once, twice then cracked a smile, Michelle feeling a heat in her lower belly as he immediately followed her orders and slipped a hand beyond his pajama pants.

“Anyway in particular?” He asked, voice low and faux seductive, Michelle biting back a smirk of her own when Peter’s smile fell as she brought a hand down past her own shorts.

“Firm,” she said, Peter’s eyes traveling from her face to where her hands were slowly circling her clit and back again, “like you like it. Like it’s me.”

Peter let out another huff, less from amusement this time and more from pleasure-- a sound that instantly made her wetter and her fingers move with a bit more pressure.

“Like that,” Michelle whispers, goading him like it was her fingers wrapped around his dick, like it was _her_ hand stroking him, even if she hadn’t moved any closer to him. “Just like that.”

Peter groaned, the hand not currently down his pants now clutching at the pillow he was laying on. Michelle felt heat pool in her belly and the wetness between her folds as she moved her fingers downwards-- watching in earnest as Peter’s eyes closed as he started to rock his hips against his own hand.

She whispered to him, telling him how wet she was already, how she’d touched herself that week and only thought of him-- how she _always_ thought of him and how much she wanted him.

“Em,” Peter moaned, the sound of his voice urging her on just as easily as the memory of it had-- sliding her other hand down to work at her clit as she slipped a finger inside.

It was easy then, to close her eyes and pretend like it was just herself again-- searching for pleasure and finding it just barely skimming the surface. But this time it was better, hearing Peter’s sharp gasps next to her and the slight squeak of her mattress as Peter started to jerk himself off with more fervor.

Michelle forced her eyes open, looking over to him to see Peter’s mouth half-parted-- a rush of love and lust and pure desire flowing through her at how easily he’d submitted to her request, how totally and utterly willing he’d been without so much as a second thought.

She slipped the finger that she’d been working inside of herself out, reaching the same hand towards him before she asked, “Can I?”

Peter snapped his eyes open, locking eyes with her and never once stopping the steady movement of his hands-- his eyes shot and his breathing haggard as he nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, please,” Peter panted, only to moan when Michelle wrapped her hand around him-- the wetness from her fingers mixing with precum as his hand wrapped around her wrist, fucking into her hand and guiding her along at the same time.

Michelle began rubbing small circles on her clit as Peter’s panting started to get more desperate-- the sounds of his harsh breathing and the sight of his eyes closed and mouth half-parted turning her on just as much as her own fingers were.

It didn’t surprise her how close Peter already was, getting the chance to stroke him only a few times before he came-- jizz spilling over her hands as he groaned.

Michelle worked her clit as hard as she could, just as desperate now to orgasm with him. Peter’s chest heaved, as he blearily opened his eyes and that’s what did it-- giving a short gasp as she rode out her own orgasm, the hand still down Peter’s pants now clutching at the hem.

Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears, a looseness in her limbs and in her bones that had her feeling satiated and tired and good.

When Michelle finally opened her eyes, she could see the content smile on Peter’s face - slowly drawing her hand away from him before wiping off her hand on his pants.

Peter wrinkled his nose before smirking, mouth opening to say something smart before Michelle leaned forward and pulled him into a kiss-- Peter melting it as he sighed.

Mutual orgasms had to count for another win in recovery bingo right?

*

He stayed with her that night, as he had many a night before and she was sure he would many a night going forward.

As Michelle sat on the bed, sheets changed, braiding her hair over her shoulder and waiting for Peter to be done brushing his teeth in the bathroom, she realized two things. One, that since her return to the city and despite spending the night together more often than not, Michelle had yet to sleep over at Peter’s apartment.

And two, that the mere thought of remedying that imbalance scared the everloving shit out of her.

In fact, leaving her apartment much at all, let alone travelling any distance alone, was frightening beyond any nightmare she could have had. Ana had recently used the word _agoraphobia_ in a session for the first time, and Michelle had fought back against it even as all of her logic and reason told her that it fit, fit, fit far too well.

She wondered if Peter knew. He was smart, after all, too smart for the good of any of them sometimes, and she wouldn’t have put it past him to at the very least be creating reasons to come over to her place instead of the other way around intentionally.

The water shut off in the bathroom, the light switch flipped, and his quiet feet padded the short distance to her bedroom. Michelle finished tying off the end of her hair as he climbed into bed beside her and kissed her on the cheek, nearly gleeful, nearly triumphant.

They had, after all, gotten off together in a mutually satisfactory if not entirely conventional way. It wasn’t the same as it had once been, Michelle knew she wasn’t quite ready for fast, thrusting, hard, the way to which they had grown accustomed, but it was something.

Back then, back before everything went to shit, before windowless vans and cold water and loud, too loud music and one, two, three locks on the door-- Michelle had fantasized about sharing a home with him.

But on that night, as she settled in beside him and wrapped an arm around his waist, as he kissed the top of her hair and murmured _I love you,_ Michelle was just grateful that he was still willing to share a bed with her.


	2. A Little Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t believe you forgot about this,” Betty smiled at Michelle. 
> 
> “Yeah, my brain must be truly fucked and fried,” she snorted in response. “Oxygen deprivation’s a bitch.”
> 
> That was, apparently, not a funny joke if Michelle had to guess by the way Ned and Betty didn’t laugh and instead leveled her with those big, stupid eyes of theirs. It didn’t matter that Michelle wasn’t actually hurting in the moment, and it didn’t matter that her memory actually had been noticeably affected by the trauma she had endured, Ned and Betty were the last people that would be able to stomach that particular brand of humor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact! chapter titles in this thing are all inspired by the titles of poems by Ocean Vuong!
> 
> and if you noticed the increased chapter count no you didn't 💖

For two weeks straight, Michelle cancelled any and all plans that required her to leave her apartment. She cancelled plans with the Starks, she cancelled plans with Flash, she cancelled plans with Peter (until he suggested he just come to her instead), she cancelled plans with Ned and Betty and even an interviewer for a new job she was actually interested in taking. 

She had been ignoring it with immense success, but even she could admit that it was a problem that was beginning to get debilitating. 

And when Michelle Jones had a problem, she simply fixed it. 

Shoes on, coat zipped, keys in hand and digging into the soft skin of her palm with jagged edges, she stared down the three locks on her front door and decided to do one final lap to make sure that all the windows were properly shut and the curtains were drawn and the little security system that Tony had set up for her was on. 

Michelle ended up making those rounds a grand total of four times before she finally unlocked the front door and stepped out into the hallway. Stairwells and elevators seemed like equally dangerous places to get cornered, but she could at least run with one of those options, so the stairs it was. 

One foot in front of the other, hands in her pockets where one continued to grip her keys and the other her cell phone, she made it down the three flights of stairs to the front door of her apartment building and let out a trembling gasp of a breath as the door to the stairwell fell shut behind her. 

She looked at the front door with trepidation. There was a bodega that she frequented just a block north and across the street from where she was now. 

One block north and across the street. She pushed open the door. 

One block north and across the street. She stepped out onto the sidewalk. 

One block north and across the street. The front door clicked shut and locked behind her. 

One block north, just one block north, one tiny block-- Michelle made it a grand total of seventeen steps away from her apartment before abruptly turning around and doubling her pace to get home, get home, get home. 

Tears were already gathering in her eyes before she even made it back to her door, because she had been able to _see it,_ that little neon OPEN sign and the newsstand out front and it didn’t make sense that she felt sick and exposed and afraid. 

What was there left for her to be afraid of, after all, except for everything? 

She locked the door to her apartment behind her-- one, two, three-- and leaned back against it, head tipped up so the crown of her skull pressed against the wood. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she clenched her fists tight enough to feel the sharp pressure of her fingernails against the meat of her palms. 

Michelle pushed herself upright so she could unsling the cross-body bag she was wearing from around her shoulders and promptly throw it in the direction of her couch, nearly jumping out of her skin when it missed and knocked a mug off the coffee table and filled her ears with the sound of it shattering. 

“Fuck.”

*

She cleaned up broken ceramic and sent a text to Tony Stark. 

_Hey! Not gonna be able to stop by tomorrow. Apologize to Mo for me, please-- I’m really sorry._

She turned off her phone before she had to read his response.

*

“Lasagna okay?”

Michelle nodded before realizing May likely couldn’t see her from this angle, finishing off her big toe with the nail polish as she yelled out, “Yeah sounds great.”

Michelle was deep in concentration, only to feel like she was being watched as she glanced up and saw May smiling at her from her tiny kitchen. 

“Which did you end up choosing?”

“Chick Flick Cherry,” Michelle replied, glancing at the name embedded across the bottom. She brought it down and smiled at May who laughed before she said, “Perfect choice for a chick flick night.”

Michelle smiled, ignoring the churning of her gut as May turned back to the kitchen and resumed the lasagna.

It went without saying the reason why May was here at her apartment rather than the other way around. ‘Chick flick night’ had been a tradition between the two of them since Michelle was in high school— maintaining a friendship with May being important to her regardless of her relationship status with Peter.

When Michelle was young, May was a refuge— a warm and comforting presence that she deeply appreciated. Michelle now, after, wondered if there would ever be a time in her life that safety wasn’t a moving target. 

Despite her less than stellar baking skills, May was an excellent cook - the lasagna she made just as delicious as the wine she brought to accompany it. They laughed at the cheesy rom com that May had chosen before turning back to the same baking show Michelle had taken such comfort in watching the past few months— May herself providing running commentary as the bakers flailed about.

It was warm, comfy, cozy, enough that it almost made Michelle forget that there was anything different between the two of them— that there was anything different about her.

Almost. 

*

Normal was relative. Michelle knew this, held on to it, tried and failed to make her peace with it.

But normal was something she craved, something she desperately wanted, something she felt that she was _right_ on the edge of only for it to come crashing back down.

It was a start, stop then start again— an endless cycle of tentatively pushing past her boundaries only to be snapped back to her new reality. She hated it, darkly thinking that at least during her month of hell she had known what to expect. That this, living life in the after was a different kind of torture. 

Ana didn’t care for that particular analogy.

Despite or maybe because of Michelle’s less than healthy thought processes, Ana gave her homework— assignments since that was the one thing Michelle understood when it came to life: 

Water the plant that May brought over three times a week. 

Text at least one person back per day, no matter what the content of the message was.

Employ the deep breathing exercises when the world got too loud and exhausting and too much— especially in the moments when the walls of her apartment started to feel like they were closing in even if the thought of being _outside_ her apartment was entirely too much to handle. 

Normal was relative but it had to exist, it had to be _real_. Michelle was tired of living life in a constant state of flux. 

And yet she did. 

The fact that she kept going had to count for something, right?

*

“I want to do something,” Michelle said against Peter’s lips, opening her eyes to see the soft look on his face as he leaned back.

He stayed over so much that he could probably pay rent, not that Michelle would dare bring that up. She craved the time she had with him, craved to return back to the sense of intimacy they shared before— when Michelle wouldn’t have given a second thought to how much or how little time she spent with Peter. 

“Yeah?” He asked, gently shifting their position on her bed and bringing a hand up to push some of her hair back. “What is it? Anything you want.” 

Michelle smiled at him, leaning forward to kiss him and feeling the smile on his lips-- letting her take the lead in a way that was so familiar that it almost hurt. 

Michelle wouldn’t have considered herself a passive participant to their sex life before, so much as they danced together seamlessly. It was a product of having been with one person for so long, someone who knew her just as well as she knew him. 

But after, now— Michelle had noticed how _much_ of an effort Peter made to try and let her take the reigns. It still pissed her off, his total surrender being something _different_ than how it had been before, but Michelle had worked enough with Ana to recognize that this was less because she was pissed off at Peter and more at the _reason._

“Does he think I can’t handle it?” she had snarked to Ana during one of their sessions, only for Ana to knock her off her feet when she replied, “It sounds as if he doesn’t want to handle _you_.” 

It hit her then, the memory of that session coming back to her as she stared into Peter’s eyes, that she wasn’t the only one who had undergone a traumatic ordeal. She knew from snippets of conversations that Peter was working through his own shit with his own therapist, along with the pointed looks and silent conversations that May and Tony would seem to have when they thought Michelle couldn’t see.

She used to be a part of those conversations, a proud card carrying member of the ‘keep-Peter-Parker-alive’ club for years. It bothered her that she wasn’t involved in it now, only in so much as she struggled to keep _herself_ alive most days.

Michelle was tired of being the one taken care of. For once, for _herself_ , she wanted to do something for him. 

Michelle pressed herself against him as she leaned forward to kiss him, Peter tensing for a moment before he relaxed into it again-- letting her push him onto his back. She takes her time with it, exploring his mouth with her tongue and his chest with her hands until Peter is gasping, the thunderous beating of her heart hammering in her ears. 

She moved to kiss alongside his jaw and then his neck, Peter’s soft gasp as she sucked at the sensitive spot alongside his collarbone sending a pleasing ache to her center as she continued to move down. 

He was shirtless, which made her task a lot easier as Michelle continued to press kisses down his chest, shuffling down until she was almost to his navel before she stopped.

“Is this okay?” She asked, looking up at him to see Peter’s eyes bugged out in a way that would almost make her laugh. 

“MJ--”

“I want to,” she said, toying with the band of his sweatpants as she bit her lip-- a tension in the pit of her stomach from the way Peter’s eyes drifted down to her lips as she did so, “I want to make you feel good.”

“You always make me feel good,” Peter immediately replied, only for Michelle smirk as she gently brought a hand down to smooth over his erection, Peter letting out a little huff as she said, “I know, dork.” 

She strokes him over his sweatpants, feeling him harden even more so as she held his gaze. 

“I want to do this,” she said more definitively, moving her hand back to the hem of his sweatpants as she waited for consent. 

Peter searched her face, Michelle watching as a thousand different emotions ran past his eyes. Before, Michelle liked sucking him off just as much as he liked going down on her. In her mind, there was no better feeling than watching the man she loved crumble underneath her-- a power in knowing that she was in control of his pleasure and a thrill that she was the one able to get him there. 

Now, after-- Michelle hoped that same thrill could help her feel as if she had a little more control in her own life, another shot of normalcy of the unconventional variety.

“Okay,” Peter finally said, putting a hand over hers as he continued to look into her eyes. “Okay.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, wondering for a split-second if she was pressuring him only for Peter to laugh, a sharp sound that he tried to contain as he nodded.

“Hell yeah, I mean. Yeah, if you want-- whatever you want.”

Michelle playfully rolled her eyes but she couldn’t help but be thrilled-- moving to shift his sweatpants and boxers off in one fell swoop. Peter lifted his hips to help her, the two of them almost giggling only to sober up when Michelle turned back to him-- straddling his legs as he laid out in front of her completely naked for the first time since the shower. 

“Like what you see?” Peter asked with a grin, Michelle quieting the alarms in her head of how significant this moment was as she leaned forward to take him in hand. 

She ran a thumb over his tip, already glistening from precum from how much she’d grinded against him just a few minutes before-- watching in amusement as Peter’s grin fell away as she started to move her palm, stroking him gently as his eyes closed.

“I should be asking you that,” she said, pumping her hand with a little more purpose before she settled herself more over him. 

“You know I--” Peter begins only to be caught off when Michelle takes him into her mouth, laving over his tip with her tongue. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Peter muttered, a tight squeeze of agreement in the space between her legs as she started to leave open mouth kisses across his tip. She kept her hand in a loose grip at the base, her other hand massaging into his thigh as she continued to work her tongue until she could take him more fully-- hollowing out her cheeks as she bobbed her head up and down. 

If Michelle had any doubts if she still _had_ it when it came to taking care of Peter, they were gone now-- Peter’s soft sighs and pants as she licked alongside his dick, taking him in her mouth and sucking hard on the upstroke giving her more encouragement than she had in weeks.

_This’ll be fun to explain to Ana_ , she thought to herself only to be distracted from pressing too far-- choking slightly on him as Peter’s hand went to her shoulder.

“Hey, are you-- are you okay?” Peter pants out, only to groan when Michelle does it again on purpose-- eyes watering slightly from the movement but a clear rush of pleasure for the sounds Peter made before bringing her lips off of him.

She continued to pump her hand, his dick now slick from the moisture of her mouth and his precum as Peter’s eyes were half-lidded, torn from looking at where her hand and his dick met and her eyes as she said, “Yeah. You?”

“Great,” Peter replied, breathless and trying hard it seemed not to come already from the pink flush that was building across his chest. “Perfect, yeah-- this is-- uh…” 

“Good idea?” Michelle mused, Peter letting out a sharp huff as he nodded a few times, moaning again when Michelle replaced her hand with her mouth once more.

It was easy, like _before_ \-- using all the tricks she had up her sleeve to make Peter come undone. She swirled her tongue just like _that_ , twisted her hand just _right_ until Peter’s hips went rigid-- straining from the impulse not to buck into her mouth. 

Michelle took that as a challenge, thinking of all the times they’d done this before-- all the times before she’d been kidnapped and traumatized and hurt and their sex life wasn’t a fucking minefield to navigate. Michelle before hadn’t had any trouble making Peter come with her hands and her tongue and there was an undeniable thrill that Michelle now, _after, was_ still just as capable-- a win if she ever found one for how restless Peter was getting.

“MJ, I’m-- I’m gonna--” Peter gasped, Michelle humming around him as she bobbed her head up and down even faster-- willing for him to finish.

Peter’s self-control only lasted for another few seconds before he came, Michelle gagging slightly from the force of it but keeping herself in place-- not wanting to risk having to change the sheets again since she hadn’t done laundry since May had visited.

She waited until his hips stopped pulsing, running her thumb over the edges of her mouth before she pulled off-- making a run for the bathroom to spit. 

It was when the water was running, rinsing her mouth out to get the aftertaste out of her mouth that Michelle finally brought attention to the pulsing ache in the space between her legs. The water was still going when she brought the hand that hadn’t been wrapped around Peter down to her clit, rubbing hard in a circular motion before slipping a finger inside herself.

Michelle gasped, grabbing the handle of the faucet as she fingered herself-- close already from how much getting Peter off turned her on. 

When she came it was quiet, a silent scream as she felt ripples along her fingers-- the grip she had on the faucet loosening as she came back to herself. Michelle stared in the mirror for a beat, satisfied and accomplished in more than one way before washing her hands, turning off the water and walking back to the bathroom only to find Peter-- his boxers back on and sitting on the bed.

They stared at each other for a beat, Michelle feeling an awkwardness for a moment that she hadn’t felt in years only for Peter to break the silence as he asked, “You okay?”

Michelle smirked, seeing the confusion and almost hurt in Peter’s eyes-- knowing that from this angle he likely had to have seen her get herself off in the bathroom rather than allow him to be a part of it.

“Yeah, I’m good. I just uh, I wasn’t--”

“You don’t have to--” Peter began, Michelle pressing forward.

“I just wanted to do something for you. Without,” Michelle paused, chewing the inside of her cheek before she said, “without it always being about me.”

Peter’s expression fell at that, Michelle walking forward and sitting beside him on the bed as he said, “I don’t— that’s not how I think of this at all—”

“I know,” Michelle quickly said because it was true and she did know that, even if it didn’t quell how pleased she was, “But I wanted to do this. I wanted it to be about you.” A beat. “ _Just_ you.”

_I wanted to know that I still could_ , Michelle thought but didn’t say. 

Peter looked as if he wanted to argue only to pause-- seeing something in her expression that Michelle wasn’t sure if she hated or was grateful for in how quickly it caused him to relent. 

Peter smiled, something Michelle saw that didn’t quite reach his eyes as he said, “I’d like to return the favor. You know, when you want me to.”

Michelle hated how accommodating he was, only to remember Ana’s words once again-- a reminder that he was learning how to navigate this just as much as she was.

“I’ll keep you posted,” Michelle joked, the awkwardness lifting slightly when Peter smiled back at her-- the warm pink flush still tinted across his skin as she laid next to him. 

Another win for recovery bingo. 

*

Michelle glared down at the open group chat on her phone. 

The last three messages were Michelle cancelling plans, followed by frustratingly concerned but understanding responses from her friends. That had been three days prior, and Michelle knew the only reason the two of them hadn’t sent any new messages in the chat was because they were strategizing how to talk to her behind her back. 

It was sweet, how much they cared, and mostly Michelle was more angry at herself for being inept than she was at them for reacting to her ineptitude. But still, she was trying to be better and she was trying to listen to Ana when she told her not to push away her support system, so she typed up a message. 

_you guys free tomorrow?_

Her leg bounced rapidly as her thumb hovered over _send_ and she had already spent the whole day talking herself into this but it still took another seven minutes and three laps around the apartment before she actually delivered the message. 

The response was nearly immediate. _Yes!!!_ Ned said followed just seconds later by Betty’s _Absolutely :)_

Michelle tucked her legs under her butt to keep from bouncing her knee anymore and texted back carefully:

_Come over at 7. I’ll make you dinner._

And then, because that looked blunt and relatively assholish, she sent a single smiling emoji to balance it out. 

Ned and Betty were enthusiastic in response, but Michelle had to set her phone down and stop looking at it because it had taken all of her energy just to make that tiny step and she wasn’t entirely confident she wouldn’t back out if they got too sincere in her inbox. 

If she couldn’t go out to meet them though, then maybe Ana would be satisfied that Michelle had brought them to her. 

Middle ground. 

Middle ground was something, middle ground was more than standing alone in no-man’s land, Michelle could do middle ground. 

*

She made them vegetarian chili and they ate it with cheap white wine at the four-seat table in her kitchen. 

She wore clothes other than her pajamas as if she was leaving her apartment and lit a couple of candles so it would smell nice. 

She also laughed. And more importantly she made jokes. And most importantly they made her feel human. 

“That’s not even true!” Ned exclaimed, leaning forward from his seat on the couch while Betty stood across from him with one hand on her hip and the other occupied by a glass of wine. 

“Don’t lie just because MJ is here,” she scolded him as Michelle watched on with amusement, curled up in the opposite corner of the couch from Ned. 

There was a familiar flutter to her heart. Nostalgia. Jubilation. 

“I’m not lying!” Ned squeaked in response. “You weren’t my first kiss!”

“I was totally your first kiss,” Betty pushed back. “I remember because you said ‘Wow, what a nice first kiss. Thanks, Betty.’”

Michelle actually snorted at that, which made the both of them grin brightly at her. Apparently it was still a big deal when they saw her exhibit even the smallest signs of happiness. She was glad to be able to give it to them, disappointed that it had to be a thing. 

“You did say that,” she prodded at Ned’s shoulder. “She told me on the bus ride home from the airport.” 

“Yeah,” Betty pointed at MJ, shoulders straightening with the confidence of backup. “We’ve caught you in a lie, Leeds. Fess up!” 

“Okay, okay,” Ned put up his hands defensively, turning between the stern gazes of both women. All three of them might have been tipping away from tipsy and into drunk with accelerating speeds. “I did lie--”

“Ha!” Betty cried out triumphantly. 

“ _But,”_ Ned continued. 

“Oh, this oughta be good,” Michelle deadpanned. 

“I’m not lying _now,”_ he explained. “I lied _then._ About-- you being my first kiss.” 

Betty gaped at him. Michelle’s eyebrows lifted and she forced a laugh back down her throat. 

Ned just grimaced. 

“No way,” Betty shook her head. “Who possibly would’ve kissed you before me?”

“Betty!” Michelle laughed at the same time that Ned let out an indignant, “Hey!” 

Betty just shrugged without remorse. “I mean…”

“Plenty of people wanted to kiss me, I’ll--” Ned sputtered. “I’ll have you know I have always been very desirable.” 

Michelle and Betty leveled him with equally disbelieving faces. Michelle took a sip of her wine as Ned let out a groan and tipped his head to rest on the back of the couch. 

“You’re terrible women.”

“Dude, you’re really not making your case here. I mean, the least you could do is actually tell us who…” she trailed off, jaw hanging open as realization made itself known at the front of her fuzzy, wine-doused brain. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Betty asked, finally sitting back down in the chair across from them. “Oh my God, what?” 

“I can’t believe I _forgot,”_ Michelle laughed, shoving gently at Ned’s shoulder. He looked halfway between miserable and giddy, which was a specifically _Ned Leeds_ sort of emotion. 

“Me neither,” he said, as Betty let out a frustrated, “Forgot _what?!”_

“The most important piece of lore from the Leeds-Parker childhood storybook,” Michelle grinned at Betty, who took a solid ten seconds before catching on. 

“Oh my _God!”_ she cackled brightly. 

“We were twelve!” Ned explained. “We just wanted to know what it was like!”

“You could’ve had the best friends to lovers romance of my dreams,” Michelle teased him. 

“Yeah,” Ned laughed. “As if _your_ best friends to lovers romance isn’t disgustingly beautiful and also fate.”

“Destiny,” Betty nodded sagely. 

Michelle ignored their quips and asked, “Hey, did you kiss my boyfriend with tongue?” 

“We were _twelve,”_ Ned insisted, going beet red. 

“I can’t believe you forgot about this,” Betty smiled at Michelle. 

“Yeah, my brain must be truly fucked and fried,” she snorted in response. “Oxygen deprivation’s a bitch.”

That was, apparently, not a funny joke if Michelle had to guess by the way Ned and Betty didn’t laugh and instead leveled her with those big, stupid eyes of theirs. It didn’t matter that Michelle wasn’t actually hurting in the moment, and it didn’t matter that her memory actually _had_ been noticeably affected by the trauma she had endured, Ned and Betty were the last people that would be able to stomach that particular brand of humor. 

Sure, they understood the absurdity of being intrinsically connected to Spider-Man, had even faced their own bouts with being dragged into the mess of it, but nothing like what Michelle was going through, nothing like what Peter had been through. 

So she deflated, and she said, “Sorry, not funny,” and she let Betty pull her up to dance when they started up a Dolly Parton record fifteen minutes later and she made a mental note in the ongoing list about which of her symptoms were palatable to the general public and which she should keep tucked away as much as possible. 

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, _Jolene!”_ they sang, arms around each other and hearts on the floor. 

Michelle hugged them tight and made sure those very hearts were securely back in their chests before they walked out the door. Hers stayed on the floor until the door was locked behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your comments on the first chapter made our week, thank you friends <3


	3. To the Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was over the slow. She was past it, she was ready, she wanted, wanted, wanted him to--
> 
> “Touch me,” she breathed into the skin of his neck as she pressed his hands into the muscle of her thighs. There was a scar there, right beneath his right hand. 
> 
> She chose not to make note of that either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for a Warning about this chapter 
> 
> we hope you're all having a good first week of the year-- hope you enjoy this update <3

Michelle kept dipping her toe into the middle ground. 

She was still scared, and she was still cracked down the center, but she found an opening for a reporting position at a small online publication that would allow her to work from home a chunk of the time, and she started inviting her friends over more frequently, and she got just a hair better at not breaking her promises to Morgan. 

This was, in part, due to the fact that she was managing to get herself over to the Tower more frequently. After Ana had found out about the self-defense lessons Michelle had started while still holed up at the Compound, she had been pleasantly surprised and even suggested that maybe that was something worth hanging onto. 

So, Michelle found herself creating a routine (and mostly sticking to it) in which she worked out in Tony Stark’s gym once a week-- sometimes with Natasha, sometimes with Peter, sometimes with her headphones and a treadmill and the knowledge that she could fill in another box on the _don’t break the chain_ chart that hung on her fridge. 

On more than one occasion, Morgan even joined her and they followed along to various yoga flows that Friday pulled up for them. Those days generally devolved into lots of repeated falls to the mat as they both tried to balance in the most difficult poses they could find, but those days were also the ones when Michelle laughed the most. 

She knew it was part of Ana’s plan, but the stronger that Michelle felt, the more she learned to relish in the ache of newly forming muscle, the more comfortable she became in her own skin. For one, it was a feeling of being more prepared to fall into the role of protector whenever such a thing became necessary again (because she wasn’t convinced that it wouldn’t, one day, be necessary again), but it was more than that. 

It was the fact that the stronger she got, the more control she had over her own body, the more in tune with the way it moved, the way it worked, the way it held her up in the world. So when her confidence started to grow in regards to the time she spent home alone with Peter, she decided not to overthink it. 

To just let it happen. 

*

“Do you still wanna return the favor?” she asked, sitting in his lap and hand resting gently on his groin. 

It was the position that they had gotten most comfortable in during the weeks of not-so-casual makeouts turning into genuinely casual makeouts. Michelle could easily get out of his hold if needed and she never felt trapped by his arms or body or presence hovering above her. 

But this was new, as evidenced by the look on his face as his eyes brightened with hopeful caution. 

“You’re sure?” he asked, gaze searching. 

The truth of the matter was that Michelle hadn’t been sure about much in a long time, but on that night she felt good, and they had been doing so well that she figured the timing was as good as any to take the dive. 

“I’m sure,” she said instead of any of that, smiling into a kiss that was more certain than she felt, more courageous than she was. 

The way that Peter then moved her off of his lap so she was reclined back against the pillows at the headboard was undemanding in nature, a suggestion of movement that she could have stopped at any moment if she had wanted to.

She found, even past her hammering heart, that she didn’t want to. 

“Tell me to stop,” Peter kissed her cheek before crouching down between her legs. “And I’ll stop.” 

“I know,” she replied, because she did.

They worked together to get her pants down past her hips, over her thighs, from around her ankles and onto the floor, and then Peter was touching her, just with his mouth-- his lips and tongue and a hint of teeth-- just to the left of the apex of her thighs. 

She actually, sincerely and embarrassingly, _gasped_ when his tongue finally found her opening with a long, slow, exploratory trail all the way up to her clit. Overwhelmed in a simultaneously good and bad way, Michelle let her eyes fall shut for all of three seconds before realizing she really did need to see him. 

His curly head bobbed between her legs and it was hot enough to make her realize she was properly horny and sweet enough to make her heart feel too big for the way it strained against her ribs with every beat. He hummed right into her and Michelle’s jaw fell open in a quiet breath of pleasure.

Michelle gripped at the hem of her own shirt with one hand and the pillow beside her with the other, unravelling a little bit at the sudden lack of control over her own physiological reactions. She barely even noticed it, the way she was slipping out of lucidity and back behind a wall of desperate coping mechanisms because she had tumbled to just the other side of _used to it_ when it came to feeling like she didn’t have a say in what it felt like to live in her skin. 

But Peter Parker, who no one ever gave nearly enough credit for how genuinely observant he was, how tuned in to other people’s emotions he was, noticed. 

“I’m here,” he said, pulling her gaze down to him as he reached up and took hold of the hand that clutched at her shirt. “Stay here with me.”

He met her eye and pressed an unyielding kiss, gentle and strong, against the skin of her inner thigh. Michelle took a deep breath, relished in the sensation of wet, swollen lips as they trailed across her hip bone, down the line of her hip flexor, and then she nodded. 

“Okay,” she breathed, shaky with something other than fear for the first time in eons. “I’m here.”

Peter smiled at her, and then his mouth was back at her center, a touch more enthusiastic than before, a tad less hesitant. Michelle’s breath caught in her throat as his tongue roamed across her clit with more determination and she gripped his hand tighter as he smoothed his thumb across her knuckles. 

He was good at this, she had always known he was good at this, but--

“ _Fuck,”_ she gasped as he expertly brought her that much closer without even having to use his fingers. “Pete-- _Peter.”_

Faster, more insistent, his mouth worked in harmony with the tilt of her hips as she pressed up against him. Her free hand, the one that wasn’t still anchored to his, made its way to the top of Peter’s head, gently resting for a moment before weaving its way into his hair. 

He made a pleased sound in response to that and eagerly responded with a flick of his tongue that they were both intimately familiar with. Because Peter Parker knew what she liked, because Peter Parker knew _her._

When she came, it wasn’t the longest or most intense orgasm that she had ever had, but it might as well have been with the sense of victory that got caught in the air between them. 

Peter kissed her thigh, he kissed her belly, he kissed the knuckles of the hand he was still holding until Michelle let go and grabbed his face and pulled his lips to collide with hers. He laughed, giddy with what he’d accomplished, what the two of them had accomplished for the first time in _months._

“You’re incredible,” he murmured against her lips. “I’m crazy about you, Jones.” 

She didn’t have the words to meet what he was saying where it stood, but she met his gaze and pecked the tip of his nose before kissing his broad grin again, so she thought he understood. He usually could, after all, because even before Michelle hadn’t been the vocally expressive one in the relationship. 

Maybe not everything had changed. 

She gently rearranged his position, so he was lying flat on his back and then straddled his hips with a newfound confidence as she leaned in to kiss him hard on the mouth. Michelle placed one palm steady against his chest and cradled his cheek in the other, noticing his pause of brief surprise before kissing her back like he meant it. 

Almost like he used to, without all of the hesitance and worry and gentle, frustrating _care._

Michelle took her hands away from his warm skin long enough to unclip her bra and take it off, noting that it was the first time she was completely naked with him since that shared shower and choosing not to make note of it all at the same time. She kissed along his jawline, listened to the hitch in his breath as she took ahold of his hands where they were gripping the sheets in some attempt to not go _too fast._

She was over the slow. She was past it, she was ready, she wanted, wanted, wanted him to--

“Touch me,” she breathed into the skin of his neck as she pressed his hands into the muscle of her thighs. There was a scar there, right beneath his right hand. 

She chose not to make note of that either. 

“Yeah,” he agreed softly, running his thumbs over her skin in an earnest sort of caress as he turned his head enough to capture her mouth in another kiss. 

Peter’s lips tasted like her, and it was familiar if also still new, but still her heart pumped with the way she felt truly in control of her own physical self, how she felt like the boss of her own body, how she felt comfortable with his chest up against hers and the hardness of his erection pressing up against her through the fabric of his sweatpants. 

Michelle made a decision in that moment, although maybe the endorphins rushing through her were the ones actually making the decision and maybe the voice in the back of her head warning her not to move too quickly was a notch too quiet. She rolled her hips down against him though, certain that residual wetness from their previous activities was leaving a damp spot against the grey material and knowing that Peter might even be able to feel it by the way he groaned into her mouth. 

“Em, hey,” he pulled back from the kiss with a series of heavy breaths as he loosened his grip on her thighs. “I love you, I love this, but should we--”

“Do you wanna fuck me?” she cut him off before he could remind her, could verbalize the fact that this was monumental for them. In that moment, Michelle knew that she had the confidence of momentum, and if he stalled her for even a smattering of seconds that she would probably chicken out. 

That fact in and of itself was telling, but Michelle really, _really_ didn’t want to chicken out from this. 

She wanted it. She wanted _him._

“I…” Peter gaped up at her, dumbfounded and flushed and beautiful. “Yeah-- Yes, of course, but, MJ, I don’t want you to--”

“I’m ready,” she cut him off again, holding his face in her hands and meeting his eyes with new, old assuredness. “I’m so ready, Peter. I want this.” 

He contemplated it for a moment, brow getting furrowed the way it always did when he was up against a moral dilemma but eyes full of more trust in Michelle than she probably even deserved. She hadn’t expected to, but she could actually see the moment that his love for her, his desire to give her everything she ever wanted won out over all the things she knew he had been hearing in therapy too. 

“Okay,” he nodded, kissed her on the cheek. “Okay,” on her chin. “Okay,” on her lips. “Just tell me what you want-- Anything-- Anything you want.” 

Michelle snaked one hand in between their bodies, slid it beneath the waistband of his pants, and wrapped nimble fingers around his cock. 

“Just want you,” she said with her first stroke, watching his mouth fall open in silent pleasure before moving down far enough to kiss along his collar bone, the hollow of his throat. 

She continued on like that for long enough to get him properly worked up, as if he hadn’t been already, as if Peter Parker didn’t get hard the minute he crouched between her legs and smelled her arousal. 

His pants were pushed down to just above his knees and he was finally starting to be less careful about where he put his hands-- her waist, her breasts, her hair-- when she moved to get off of him and off of the bed entirely. 

“Where’re you going?” he held her hand, and Michelle breathed out a genuine laugh at the look on his face. 

“Condoms,” she grinned, motioning with the hand not in his at her dresser on the other side of the small room. 

“Miss you,” he groused with a frown that she knew was for her benefit, meant to get her to laugh again, and fuck if she wasn’t going to give him exactly what he wanted in that moment. 

“Alright then, Clingy,” she tugged him to his feet and pecked him on the lips before traipsing over to root around in her underwear drawer and pull out a condom from a box at the back. 

Michelle sat back down on the bed as Peter let his pants fall the rest of the way to the floor and then she turned him to face her so she could look at his face as she slowly rolled the condom on, not even remotely disappointed by the reaction that she got out of him. 

She kissed the center of his chest, right on top of his sternum and felt him thread his hands into her hair reverently. Michelle opened her legs and pulled him closer, lining him up with her entrance. 

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed as he pushed in slowly, keeping his hands in her hair so he could tilt her face just enough to kiss her fully on the lips, tongue moving against hers in harmony with the way he pressed in and pulled back out, again, and again, and once more. 

Michelle pulled at his hips, urging him on with sounds of pleasure at the back of her throat and trying to get him to speed up. 

“Faster,” she pleaded, gasping when he accommodated her request. “Yeah-- Peter, like that.”

“Fuck,” he muttered in response, hips keeping a steadier pace now as he ran his thumbs over her temples with a tenderness that quite frankly contrasted the posture of the rest of his body. 

And it wasn’t until then, when it was finally beginning to feel like real life again, that Michelle’s overconfidence decided to turn around and punch her straight in the gut. 

Because Peter pulled her hair, tugged it hard right at the root with fingernails scraping over her scalp just enough to sting. 

And she was done. 

Done with any good feeling she had acquired over the course of the night, done with any sense of progress that she thought she had made, and, at the core of it all, done feeling human. 

It wasn’t an immediate external reaction-- she didn’t push him away instinctively and she didn’t scream and she didn’t lose it in a way that was obvious to him. Not in the middle of everything, not when they had both thought just moments before that this was _working_ and that they were finally, finally managing it. 

What happened was he pulled her hair-- something she knew she liked, because she knew herself, because she had to still be that way otherwise too much would have changed, changed, kept changing. Peter pulled her hair and her breath hitched and for a moment, brief as it was, she could feel herself start to slip outside of her body. 

One, two, three more slow thrusts and then, after an eternity of frozen terror, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around her escaping consciousness and _pushed_ it right back into her chest. 

“Stop,” she breathed, barely loud enough to hear past the thick air in the room, but Peter stilled. “Stop-- _stop,_ get-- get off, off, off--”

“Okay, okay,” Peter was frantic and that’s how she knew she looked crazy, even as she was still half in her bedroom and half on a concrete floor so many miles away from home. “Hey, you’re okay, we’re done,” he pulled out and took a step back and put his hands up in front of him where she could see them. 

He took a step back and it wasn’t enough as Michelle fell back onto her elbows, chest heaving, before scrambling backwards to press the sweat-slick skin of her back up against the headboard. 

Stark naked and trembling, she could barely process his presence, but even still she knew he was there, could hear his voice harmonizing with the buzzing in her ears. 

“Em…” he placed a knee on the mattress, moving to sit facing her-- and when had he put his boxers back on? “I’m so sorry, okay? I’m so, _so_ fucking sorry. But you need to breathe-- I need-- I need you to just slow your breathing.” 

A note of warning hummed somewhere at the back of her throat as he tried to move closer and she put up a hand to make him stop. Peter had tears in his eyes, a shattered sort of countenance where his face should have been, and Michelle had done that to him. 

The amount of guilt in that room, a whole hurricane of it swirling around the two of them at the eye of that storm that they probably should have seen coming, it was suffocating. 

“You need to leave,” she said, before reaching down to grab the sheet that sat crumpled halfway down the mattress and using it to cover herself. “You need-- Peter--”

“No?” he frowned at her. “No, I’m not-- I won’t leave you like this.”

“I need you to _go,”_ she choked out between breaths, not having the words to explain that he was a man, that she was facing down against a man, and it wasn’t his fault but he was scaring her. 

She was scared of his body and she was scared of his voice and the longer he stood there the more concrete walls and a one-way mirror blurred into the pictures on her shelves and the curtains on her windows. 

“Michelle--”

“Please, I am-- _begging,”_ she gasped. “You’re-- making it worse, you have to leave. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I need you to-- Please, please, _please.”_

“I’m…” Peter exhaled, unsteady and tragic and maybe he was scared too. He shook his head, clearly having an internal battle of his own as gravity finally won out over the tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he said with a final breath before picking up leaden feet and dragging himself out of the room by force. 

He closed the door gently behind him and Michelle released a sob so violent, so full of guilt and fear and relief all on top of each other that she thought she might actually be dry heaving. She curled up at the head of the bed, blanket wrapped tight around her body, and she shattered. 

Peter was almost certainly standing just outside her door, hearing every hitching breath and pitiful whimper that forced its way past her lips, and a quiet piece of her, somewhere towards the back of her consciousness, wished she had it in her to get up and go out there and hold him tight. 

She didn’t. 

Laying there alone, body tense with remembered assaults and bruising boots, sobbing unevenly into her pillow, Michelle thought about the movies. 

She thought about all of the broken women, with their beautiful tears and romantic mental illnesses and the way the end of act three came along to save them from their tragic, pretty lives with true love and a shiny dress. 

She wondered what was wrong with her, that her tragedy couldn’t be elegant, that her body was too skinny in some places and too wide in others and some of her skin was still scarred and the way she was shaking with violent sobs made the blood vessels in her eyes burst and snot drip into her mouth because she didn’t have the dexterity to blow her nose. 

Michelle knew she had all the pieces to the puzzle-- she had the hardship, she had the fucking _win,_ she had the damned love of her life standing right outside her door, but she was still, still, _still_ so broken that none of it seemed to matter. 

She could do everything right and ask for help and go to therapy and take _small, reasonable_ steps but she was never going to get to the pretty part of her tragedy, was she? Because none of it was pretty, because her tears weren’t graceful, because the fact that her boyfriend’s hands in her hair sent her spiralling wasn’t fucking _romantic._

So, she cried for an ending to her story that would never come, and she cried for the sense of hope leaking out of her with treacherous sluggishness, and she cried for the man she didn’t deserve and the way she kept hurting him with cruelties that she simply couldn’t properly cage. 

Michelle Jones cried, because she was sick, and because she was pretty sure there wasn’t a cure. 

Some time later, as her breathing slowed but tears continued to come unbidden down her cheeks, there was a quiet knock at the bedroom door. 

Assuming it was Peter, Michelle wrapped herself up tighter in the comforter and used her cracking voice to tell him a blatant lie. 

“You don’t have to stay. I’m okay now.”

The door cracked open in response, but the Parker to poke her head inside was not the Parker she was expecting. 

“May?” her eyebrows pulled together, although she couldn’t feel it with the way all the crying had made her face feel swollen and hot and numb. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” May offered up a gracious smile. “Can I come in for a minute?” 

Fresh tears filled Michelle’s eyes, relief for something she hadn’t realized she needed blooming in her lungs, but all she could think to say was--

“I’m naked.” 

May’s smile grew ever so slightly amused as she stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her. 

“Well, I’ve packed for you before,” she said as she made her way to Michelle’s dresser. “I’m sure I can find you something comfy to put on.” 

Michelle watched from her nest of blankets in the center of her mattress as May pulled out clean underwear, loose pajama pants, and a baggy t-shirt, feeling more vulnerable at the way it tugged at some long desired maternal relationship than even her own nudity. 

“Here you go,” May said as she placed the small pile of clothing next to Michelle. “Go ahead and get changed, I’ll be right back.” 

And then she was alone in her room again, taking the laborious steps to put on clothes but still doing so without ever standing up. She shimmied into her underwear and pants, threw on the t-shirt, and immediately returned to laying on her side under a mountain of blankets and facing the door. 

May gave her more time than she needed to change, but eventually returned to place a glass of water on the nightstand and lay down facing Michelle on top of the covers, warm washcloth in hand. 

“Can I…?” she asked, and Michelle’s jaw trembled even as she nodded in assent. “Close your eyes, this’ll help,” May continued gently. 

Michelle did as she was told, immediately revelling in the soft, wet, warmth of the cloth as May ran it across her cheeks and forehead and chin, wiping away remnants of tears and sweat and snot. Surprisingly enough, it really was helping. 

She kept sniffling, choking on the gunk that had made its way down her throat, but her breathing was significantly more even than it had been and when she opened her eyes again, the room looked a little less frightening. 

May handed her the glass of water and Michelle obediently sat up just enough to drink a few long sips before once again handing it back and returning to the curled up position that her body really didn’t have any interest in moving from. 

“Is Peter okay?” she asked, the moment she could string a coherent sentence together. Her voice was rough, but she knew that even in a moment like that, May Parker would be honest with her. 

“You gave him a bit of a scare,” May tucked a stray curl back behind Michelle’s ear with warm, dry hands. “But he’s going to be just fine. The both of you are going to be just fine.” 

“I messed up,” Michelle said, too small to possibly be her voice. “He deserves, he deserves--” a dry, choked sob cut off the sentiment, but May just continued smoothing back the hair at her temple, undeterred by all the messy parts of her. 

“You wanna know what I think you deserve?” May asked quietly, rhetorically. “You deserve-- The both of you deserve to get to heal from all of the hurt the world has thrown at you, yeah?”

Michelle buried her nose in her pillow, body trembling with the weight of held-in emotion. 

“You deserve time,” May continued. “However much time you need to find your footing again. And you deserve light-- as much as it takes to see past the darkness. And you deserve _love,_ Michelle. Buckets and buckets of good, old fashioned _love.”_

“I hurt him,” Michelle cried, muffled by bedclothes. “I hurt him and I hurt you and I hurt Morgan like every other day and I keep-- I keep _hurting_ everybody who gives a shit. No matter how much I try to make up for it or fix it I just-- keep hurting them.” 

“We’re hurting because _you’re_ hurting,” May said, reassuring but with an aching edge. “And we forgive you, okay? We’re gonna keep forgiving you every time because we have so much love for you, Michelle Jones. You are adored and we are your family so we’re gonna be here no matter what. You got that? No matter _what.”_

Michelle didn’t think it through before she pushed herself across the mattress and into May’s arms, a desperation to the hug that had May immediately clinging back with fervor. 

“I’m sorry,” Michelle apologized into the crook of May’s neck.

“Shhh, none of that,” May hushed softly. “I’ve got you.”

May had told her once, back when she and Peter had broken up for the first time and she was leaving the city for her freshman year at Harvard, that it didn’t matter whether or not she was still Peter’s girlfriend, that she would always be welcome in May Parker’s home. 

Michelle thought now, all these years later, that maybe she had never truly believed it until she buried her snotty face in May’s shoulder and held on for dear life. Because May wasn’t letting go. 

“There you go,” May murmured. “Get it all out. I’ll be right here.” 

And Michelle believed her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Recovery is a process and MJ attempts a sexual act that she is not emotionally prepared for which results in a panic attack and some dissociation. Nothing non-consensual happens and the moment IMMEDIATELY comes to an end but we just wanted to note it here so you would be aware. 
> 
> thank you for stopping by, we love hearing your thoughts about this story <3


	4. Dusk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t rely on anyone,” Michelle slipped, realizing what she’d admitted and wincing at it. “I mean— for that. I don’t rely on anyone for my emotional sense of well-being.”
> 
> When Ana didn’t respond, Michelle chewed the inside of her cheek, looking back over to her to see the neutral expression on Ana’s face.
> 
> Michelle sighed, unfurled her arms and sat up— facing Ana head on as she asked, “That’s a bad thing huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your incredible kindness in the comments of this fic so far, we really appreciate it <3 
> 
> once again, see the end notes of this chapter for a warning

Peter stopped coming by her apartment for a few days.

He didn’t stop talking to her, Michelle could sense that neither of them would have been able to handle that. He texted and he called, quiet conversations that just barely circled around awkwardness until he said something that made her laugh, until she talked more about the contestants on the baking show she loved.

But he gave her space— space she didn’t want, space that she hated that she needed.

She hated the space because when Peter wasn’t there, it was another reminder of how _alone_ she really was— even if Ana warned her during a session that there was a difference between loving Peter and being codependent on him.

“I thought you said it was a good thing to stay connected to him,” Michelle grumbled while she stared at the ceiling, arms crossed as if she was pouting while laying on Ana’s couch.

“Connected, yes. Relying on him for your emotional sense of well-being, no,” Ana replied, the same balance of firmness and kindness that Michelle had come to both envy and rely on.

“I don’t rely on anyone,” Michelle slipped, realizing what she’d admitted and wincing at it. “I mean— for that. I don’t rely on anyone for my emotional sense of well-being.”

When Ana didn’t respond, Michelle chewed the inside of her cheek, looking back over to her to see the neutral expression on Ana’s face.

Michelle sighed, unfurled her arms and sat up— facing Ana head on as she asked, “That’s a bad thing huh?”

“It’s not as simple as bad or good,” Ana amended, crossing her legs before she said, “Your independence is something to be cultivated and is unsurprising considering your family history.”

“But? I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’ there,” Michelle had dryly replied, only for Ana to smile at her patiently.

“ _But_ we all need people in our lives. People we can rely on yes, and trust. People we can be totally honest with. People we know are there for us, just as much as we are there for them.”

Ana sighed, thoughtful and contemplative before looking back at Michelle determinedly.

“It’s not a weakness to need people.”

*

It may not be weak to need people, but fuck if Michelle didn’t still feel that way.

It was easy in the hours after her therapy appointments to be full of confidence that she would be able to follow all of Ana’s recommendations— that it was really that simple as _choosing_ whether or not to feel or do anything.

Only for that all to come crashing down as soon as the sun would set, alone in her apartment and desperately battling the need to be alone with wanting desperately for Peter to be with her.

The problem, in Michelle’s estimation, was that she had no real metric for what was okay. What was _too_ much time spent with someone versus what was healthy considering the trauma she’d endured? Wasn’t it a good thing, complete meltdown aside, that she loved being around Peter still? That she loved _Peter_ , and May and Morgan and Ned and the rest of the little family she had somehow been adopted into?

It was a good thing, Michelle was sure of it. But she couldn’t escape the nagging sense of being a burden, of being too much, of wondering if her trauma was too great of an elephant in the room that it just suffocated anyone else in her presence.

Peter and May had seen her at her worst, the Stark’s doubly so. Even lunch with Ned and Betty, as much as she enjoyed it, proved that there were just some things she couldn’t share— some things that couldn’t be communicated without feeling like a burden or like a freak show, even if Michelle knew Ana would bristle at that.

It was what finally motivated her to invite Flash over to hang out, the closest connection she could emotionally manage without being so far removed that he didn’t understand.

It hit her belatedly, when Flash was halfway through a story about some reality television star she’d already forgotten the name of, that Flash may have been one of the few who understood her best from the start.

“And then he told his boyfriend—“

“Why’d you trust me?”

Flash paused, his mouth still open and his hands comically extended in front of him from excitedly telling his story— only for his mouth to close and his hands to fall as he squinted at her.

“Trust you…”

“With the story. Why me?” She asked, only for Flash to look at her like she was an idiot.

“Because it’s _you_.”

Michelle blinked at him, making a face before she said, “That means nothing to me.”

Flash rolled his eyes before he said, “Come on, MJ.”

“I’m serious,” Michelle replied, bringing her knees to her chest as she sat across from him on the couch. “Why me?”

Flash let out something that sounded like a mix of a laugh and scoff, only for it to turn to genuine confusion when Michelle didn’t back down.

“You really don’t know?”

Michelle shrugged them motioned for him to continue as Flash just let out of a huff.

“Cause it’s _you_ , MJ.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Let me finish,” Flash proclaimed, sounding a little exasperated, “Shit, for someone who hates being interrupted, you interrupt people a lot.”

Michelle held her tongue, especially since he had a point.

Flash sighed, tapping his fingers against the couch before he said, “You’ve always been sure of yourself, so focused. I uh, I haven’t had a lot of luck getting close to people. And I know most of it is my own fault but,” Flash shrugged, Michelle feeling more kinship with him now than she thought she ever had before, “I knew you’d take care of things. Like you always do.”

Michelle was simultaneously flattered and broken by Flash’s admission, if only because taking care of anything was so far beyond the scope of what Michelle believed that she could handle.

Considering what he’d just revealed, Michelle wasn’t surprised in the least at how perceptive Flash was when he asked, “Why? Is everything okay?”

“No,” Michelle deadpanned, Flash smirking before Michelle tried and failed to smile. “I was tortured for a month and the man who orchestrated it still has a small but loud contingent of supporters who ridicule me on social media almost daily.”

“You really shouldn’t be checking that,” Flash said, only for Michelle to give him a look.

“Of all the people who could talk to me about being too much on social media, _you_ are not one of them,” Michelle dryly replied, Flash’s smirk turning into a genuine laugh as he nodded.

“Touche.”

Michelle shifted around on the couch, clearing her throat before she said, “It’s not that though, it’s more… stuff with Peter.”

“Parker?” Flash snorted, looking as incredulous as Michelle would’ve been before at the idea that there was anything problematic between them, a part of her now still having a hard time accepting that as fact. “He worships the ground you walk on. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who’s ever looked at someone the way he looks at you. What’s going on with him?”

“That’s just it,” Michelle said with a huff, exhaling loudly out of her mouth as she rested her chin across her knees, “he’s treating me like I’m fragile or fucking-- I don’t know, made of glass.”

Flash squinted at her as Michelle barrelled forward, “And I’m not an idiot, I know it had to have been like massively traumatizing to walk in on me getting waterboarded and looking like shit but I’m not-- I’m _better_ now. Or I’m trying to be.”

Michelle let out a laugh that sounded a little strangled and far too vulnerable to be heard by anyone, much less Flash Thompson. “We can’t even have _sex_ without me having some kind of fucking breakdown.”

Flash immediately put his hands up, simultaneously looking mildly disgusted and like he wanted to be a supportive friend as he said, “Hey whoa, okay this is getting to be the kind of conversation you have with… literally anyone other than me. I don’t want to know about what you and _Spider-Man_ get up to.”

He shivered. “I’ve already seen more than I ever wanted to of Peter when he and Black Cat were messing around.”’

“You’re all I got, Thompson,” Michelle joked only half-seriously, yet serious enough for Flash to bring his hands down and for his shoulders to sag before he grinned at her.

“That’s pathetic, MJ.”

Michelle laughed, clearly the intended reaction when Flash’s grin turned into a smile as he said, “Seriously though, this isn’t the kind of conversation you’re supposed to be having with me or anyone else. I’m shitty at relationships most of the time but I know that stuff between partners is supposed to be just that. Partners.”

It was Michelle’s turn to grin, nodding at Flash before she said, “Damn, Thompson. Didn’t know you had so much wisdom to give.”

“Don’t get too comfortable with it. Especially after you hear what happened on my last date.”

Michelle took the easy segue away from her own relationship drama and into Flash’s, partly for his benefit but mostly for her own since she could see that Flash was right.

Michelle felt like she was being treated with kid gloves, something she’d already expressed discontent to with Ana time and time again. But it wasn’t until her conversation with Flash that she really started to reconcile that for as much as she’d talked about this very thing about Peter to Ana, she’d yet to really have an explicit conversation about it _with_ Peter.

Which is what led her to now, tapping her fingers absentmindedly on her couch later that same day, as Peter sat across from her in the same position Flash had been.

His hair was wet from the shower he’d taken right after patrol, a shower that Michelle had almost wanted to join in on but stopped herself lest she jump into a physical encounter that she wasn’t ready for once again.

Another win, in a way, for recovery bingo.

“So,” Peter said, wringing his hands together in the same way he always did when he was nervous. “What’s up?”

It was so awkward, so _absurd_ for him to try and act like nothing was wrong even if everything was and wasn’t all at the same time.

Michelle bit her lip, looking back to meet his eyes before something flashed behind his-- letting out something that sounded like an honest to God giggle as Peter’s lips upturned.

He pressed his own lips together, trying not to laugh only for Michelle to break first -- a hacking cough that was a laugh and a cry and a sob all at once that Peter looks bewildered about for a moment before joining in.

“This is fucking weird right?” Michelle asked, swiping tears from her eyes.

“So fucking weird,” Peter admitted, running a hand through his hair and the tension in his shoulders visibily loosening before he got that same mournful look in his eye.

“MJ, I’m so sor--”

“Please don’t apologize to me about this,” Michelle pleaded, “ _I’m_ sorry that I--”

“You have absolutely _nothing_ to be sorry for, MJ,” Peter said with a conviction that threw her off guard. “Last week was on me. I should have never, _ever_ thought that you--”

“What? Wanted you to fuck me? Michelle asked incredulously, Peter just staring at her with an intense look on his face. “I practically begged you to. That’s-- it’s not your fault that I had a fucking panic attack over it.”

“It’s not _your_ fault either,” Peter said gently, a part of Michelle breaking at how much guilt he had written all over his face. “MJ, you’ve been through--”

“I know what I’ve been through, Peter,” Michelle snapped, only to close her eyes and wince as Peter goes silent.

“I’m sorry,” Michelle began.

“Don’t b--”

“Let me do this,” Michelle said harshly but still under her breath, only to summon her courage further when she continued, “Let me fucking _do_ something.”

Michelle opened her eyes to see Peter looking a mix of hurt and terrified and resigned, nodding as Michelle pressed forward.

“I-- I don’t know, clearly, what works for me anymore. I... “ she took a deep breath, “I want to have sex with you. I miss you. I miss _us_.”

“MJ--”

“ _Please_ let me finish,” Michelle said, Peter clamping his mouth shut as Michelle took another deep breath.

“I miss us and how we-- we used to be. I’ve been in a relationship with you for almost two years but physically it’s like we’re back in high school, scared of even touching each other.”

“I was never scared of touching you,” Peter said, Michelle making a face when Peter continued, “Scared of doing it _wrong_? Sure, but never scared of touching you.”

“And now?” Michelle asked quietly, Peter’s face transforming into the same kind of vulnerability that made her fall in love with him over and over again.

“I’m scared of hurting you,” Peter whispered, only to close his eyes. “I did, I _did_ hurt you, MJ and before you say that it’s not my fault, I--” He sighed before opening his eyes. “I know what Ana probably told you and what Dr. Prishka told me but it still doesn’t just make it go away.”

Peter tapped his fingers against his thigh, the nervousness returning as he bit his lip. It’s the same look he had on his face just seconds before but now with more trepidation, as if he was wrestling with something within himself.

“What?” Michelle asked, dread pooling in her stomach from how conflicted Peter looked.

“I… I’m gonna ask you something. Something I told myself I wasn’t— that I didn’t want to know, if you didn’t want to share,” Peter said carefully, closing his eyes as if it was painful. “I know it’s— that this isn’t something you should feel you have to tell me and it’s my own fault for not reading your article.”

Peter huffed out a laugh that sounded too sad to be called such, fingers trilling against his lap, “All of it, at least.”

“I didn’t know you read _any_ of it,” Michelle replied quietly, Peter looking at her solemnly before nodding.

“Some. I wanted to read it so you weren’t, you know, _alone_ with what happened,” Peter began, his knee now bobbing up and down. “Dr. Prishka helped me figure out which sections would be good to just like, get a picture of things.”

Michelle could sense that he was building to some kind of question but to what direction, she had no idea.

Only for the penny to drop when Peter finally cleared his throat and said, “You were right, before. I don’t know what you’ve been through.”

The dread that was pooling in her stomach turned to empathy, a mind that had always worked ten steps ahead already anticipating the point of Peter’s trepidation as he continued.

“I kept telling myself that if you— if you wanted to share anything with me, you would. But then what if you did? In the article and I just— I don’t know it. What if someone out there knows more about what they— what they did to you and I—”

“Peter…” Michelle said quietly, gently, knowing that his guilt wasn’t just a burden she didn’t have to bear but was also misplaced.

“You— what you went through, what they did to you,” Peter said, his tone simultaneously broken and filled with rage, “I never want you to think that you _have_ to tell me.”

Peter blinked, tears springing in his eyes as he wiped his face with the palm of his hand, bringing it down and searching her face. “But if I did something— if I… I _hurt_ you like they did then—”

“They didn’t rape me.”

Peter stopped, frozen as he stared at her. It was blunt, direct and to the point but Ana’s words rung in her ears— not just of knowing that she could trust the people around her but that she could be honest with them.

Michelle had endured a horrifying trauma— physical violence that marked her both physically and mentally, scars and long-faded bruises and a trunk load of triggers that were still shaping how she interacted with the world.

But this violence, the oldest and most terrifying for a woman, wasn’t hers— the violation of her physical space and sense of self never crossing that line no matter how often it was threatened.

Peter took a shaky breath, Michelle swallowing down the lump in her throat as she said, “They did… _a lot_ of really fucked up shit. But not— not that.”

Peter absorbed that, nodding once before he clicked his jaw, closing his eyes as he shook his head and said, “You shouldn’t have had to tell me that. It doesn’t— what I feel here doesn’t matter. Not—” he interjected, “not like what you feel does.”

Peter opened his eyes, gently reaching a hand towards her-- with care, with love, asking for permission-- Michelle extending her own hand and intertwining her fingers with his as he said, “I’m sorry.”

“ _You_ have nothing to be sorry for,” Michelle said with a lightness she didn’t feel, running her thumb across his hand as she continued, “ _I’m_ the one who told you to fuck me and then had a fucking meltdown.”

Peter didn’t respond, looking at her with a knowing expression on his face and realizing that she was doing it again— the defense mechanism of trying to make light of her trauma and make it palatable.

She should have known better by now than to think that Peter Parker, who wore a mask even when he wasn’t in the suit, wouldn’t see right through it.

“Bad joke,” she admitted, Peter squeezing her hand.

“Yeah,” he replied, “but I love you anyway.”

“I love you too,” Michelle said with a smile, one that she knew didn’t quite reach her eyes.

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, Peter gently running his thumb over her hand before he said, “You know we still have to keep talking about this. About us.”

“Yeah,” Michelle said, resigned and yet glad not for the first time that she was dating someone who was emotionally self-aware. “I uh, tried to talk to Flash today about it and--”

“You talked to Flash about our sex life?” Peter asked, looking just as mildly disgusted and horrified as Flash had not a few hours before.

It was enough to make Michelle laugh, pulling him closer to her. Peter acquiesced, the two of them slowly repositioning themselves on the couch until Peter was on his side, Michelle looking back up to him with an arm reaching up to play with the ends of one of his curls.

“No, he said he’s heard enough about it to last a lifetime,” Michelle replied with a wink, Peter making a face as she pressed forward, “and that I should be talking to _you_ about it, not him.”

Peter smirked, gently pressing a kiss to her forehead that Michelle leaned into as he said, “Yeah, I tried talking to Tony and--”

“You talked to _Tony Stark_ about our sex life?” Michelle asked with not-quite exaggerated indignation, Peter’s whole body shaking from laughter as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer to him.

“ _Tried_ , MJ, not did. I’ve gone over to the lab three different times to try and talk to him and chickened out every single time.”

Before Michelle can say anything to the contrary, Peter supplied the reason when he said, “Cause it’s fucking weird to talk to him about this. It’s like-- like talking to _May_ about--”

Peter tensed, cutting himself off when he seemed to remember that May was the one that had come to them that night-- going to open his mouth no doubt to give some long, drawn out apology when Michelle interjected, “May was the one who suggested I take that pregnancy test over spring break that one year, remember? I don’t think anything phases her.”

Peter relaxed at that, Michelle burrowing her head into his chest as she whispered, “We got a lot of people on our team, Parker.”

“Yeah,” Peter whispered into her hair, holding her close, “Tony knows, uh, way more about this specifically than I think anyone else does.”

She laughed, leaning back from his chest and looking into his eyes as she deadpanned, “Having sex?”

Only for her stomach to twist itself into knots when Peter soberly replied, “Having sex after being kidnapped and tortured.”

Michelle was quiet for a beat, Peter’s arms tightening his grip around her as he whispered, “I want to be here for you. I just— I don’t know how.”

Michelle swallowed, bringing a hand up to Peter’s face and thinking of her revelation that she would have to learn how to need Peter when she said, “Looks like we have to learn together then, huh?”

Peter let out a laugh that sounded a little too much like a sob, especially for the way tears started to spring in his eyes. There was a question in his eyes, just as there was guilt and undeniable relief-- a question that Michelle answered him by leaning forward and kissing him again.

Michelle already knew Peter Parker well enough to know that he would say that what he went through in the month she was taken or even the months since was nothing compared to what she did.

He’d be right, in a lot of different ways.

But so had Flash, Michelle thought as the kiss deepened-- not with any other purpose than reassuring that the two of them were there, together, connected.

They were partners. Partners who loved each other, who trusted each other and who would-- as the last week had shown-- fuck up.

They’d fuck up together though, Peter pressing a kiss to her forehead before they quietly whispered to each other for the rest of the night— promising that they wouldn’t continue to hold these things back from each other. That they would be blunt, forthright— that they couldn’t hide things from each other to protect the other anymore.

Recovery bingo had to have a spot for that.

*

It was strange for Michelle, learning about the things that triggered her but shouldn’t have and the things that didn’t but logically should.

She could make it all the way across the city on her own to get to Stark Tower, but walking to the bodega (one block north and across the street) was enough to send her reeling. She saw a news segment on television about someone who had actually almost drowned without feeling more than a slight clench to her gut, but some days playing music while she cleaned her apartment was too much.

She sat across from Thaddeus Ross and spoke with confidence directly to his face, walked out with her head held high and ate ice cream with Tony Stark like nothing was wrong and then had to get out of bed with her beautiful boyfriend at one o’clock in the morning to double check the lock on the front door.

It had been nearly a year since she was abducted, and some things were getting easier, she could admit that much to herself, but every day she woke up and had to grapple with the knowledge that she didn’t have control over her own reactions to minor blips in her everyday life.

But as bitter as she was about the continuing bad days, she was trying to learn to really live in the good ones, the ones where she felt steady in her shoes and secure in her skin.

The ones where she managed to pick up Morgan from school and take her to the farmer’s market for fresh fruit and a smoothie. The ones when she published a new OpEd and got a string of live text reactions from May and Tony and Pepper.

The ones when she experienced genuine comfort in being naked in bed with Peter, when she was able to make him feel good or he was able to return the favor. The ones when they had sex, even though sex was looking a little different now, a little more like tongues and hands and blunt communication and less like penetrative, fast, hard.

The frustration and the gratitude were intrinsically linked somewhere at the bottom of her ribs, wound up around each other as she vacillated wildly between acceptance of a new normal and grief for a lost potential.

“What is it you feel you’ve lost?”

Michelle chewed on the inside of her cheek, looked at the Van Gogh print hanging behind Ana’s head.

“All we talk about is what I’ve lost,” she said without any malice, just exhaustion.

“We talk a lot about certain things you’d like to return to,” Ana replied. “But I’m not sure you’ve said anything about a permanent loss before.”

“I don’t know that it’s-- it’s not anything tangible, y’know?”

“That’s perfectly okay,” Ana responded compassionately. She was always so compassionate, even when she was pushing back against Michelle’s less healthy lines of reasoning, even when she was actively trying to prove the voices in Michelle’s head wrong.

“It’s just that,” Michelle shook her head. “Look, you’ve chatted with plenty of Avengers, you know that there are other universes where-- where we still exist but things happen differently?”

“Yeah, I know,” Ana nodded.

“So there’s a version of me out there,” Michelle continued insistently. “Not a theoretical one, an _actual_ Michelle Jones who never went through all of this and she’s-- She’s just got all this potential, all these options that I don’t have now because there’s stuff that I just can’t handle anymore.”

“And how do you feel about her? This other Michelle?” Ana asked. “Is it anger? Jealousy?”

“Yeah, it’s fucking jealousy,” Michelle laughed sharply. “She gets to fuck her fucking boyfriend without having a breakdown, yes, yeah-- I’m jealous.”

“I know I’ve said this before, but I’m going to say it again,” Ana said. “A so-called _breakdown_ is not a personal failure. You have PTSD, Michelle-- you know that and Peter knows that and my question is, in situations like that one, are either one of you considering that that PTSD is in the room with you? Are you talking about it? Communicating? Or are you avoiding looking at it?”

Michelle picked at the cuticles of her left hand with the nails on her right, unable to stop thinking about, even days following, just how long Peter had been sitting on his questions. How much not talking about it had torn him up inside, even if they had both thought it had been the mature decision at the time.

“We’re working on that,” she said quietly, gaze directed downwards.

“We’ve been doing this long enough to know that on the hard days communication feels impossible, right?” Ana questioned.

“Yeah,” Michelle said shortly.

“But on the good days it’s getting easier?”

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“So, focus on that,” Ana was pressing past the monosyllabic wall between them, and as much as it made Michelle’s skin itch it was also appreciated. “Really lean into the communication on the good days to the point where it becomes a habit, so on the hard days maybe it’s still hard but it’s a little less daunting.”

Michelle nodded, bounced her knee restlessly.

“I really am trying,” she implored. “Peter and I-- we’re both really trying.”

“I know you are,” Ana said gently. “We were just talking the other day about how you two have found ways to have a mutually satisfactory sexual relationship. You were excited about that, and you should be. It’s a big step, Michelle.”

“Yeah, but then the anniversary happened,” she pushed back, some of the fire returning to her belly as she found an argument to latch onto. “And I locked myself in my apartment and couldn’t pick up the phone for hours on end because I was _terrified._ For no fucking reason, I was just-- stuck.”

“But those two things aren’t connected to each other, right?” Ana prodded. “Come on, you’re a smart woman, Michelle-- do you really think that having a hard day, even a _really_ hard day, erases all of the progress you’ve been making? How _well_ you’ve been doing?”

“It doesn’t matter how well I think I’m doing,” she laughed bitterly, hysteria seeping into the edges. “It’s always one step forward and two steps back, I can’t-- I can’t _win.”_

Ana gave her a beat to sulk, but Michelle could feel the smack of her comment before it even came.

“And what’s a win for you?” she asked simply. “In this context-- what does winning look like?”

Michelle clenched her jaw at the gall it took to ask her that when she very obviously couldn’t possibly have a proper answer to offer up. Every time they had this discussion, every time Michelle groused about falling behind again, losing progress again, shifting towards the abnormal again, Ana asked-- _what does that mean for you._ And every goddamn time, Michelle floundered.

“It looks like-- I don’t know, okay? You know I don’t know,” she said with a tired bite of exasperation to her tone. “But it’s not this. Not this.”

Ana considered this for a moment, nodded sagely, and then set her notes aside and rested her elbows on her knees, craning her neck to look Michelle right in the eye.

“Okay. I’m going to ask you this, then,” she said evenly. “Have you stopped yet, since this whole thing began, to examine the possibility that you’re never going to find the answer to that question? Because maybe all of this-- all of these answers that you’re looking for about who you are now and what you’re becoming-- maybe these aren’t the kinds of things you find, so much as they’re the kinds of things you get to decide.”

Michelle felt something in her head short-circuit, or close to it, at this suggestion. She had been carefully collating reasoning and logic and _proof_ in her head since the age of eight, and here was Ana Gutierrez to pull one thread and unravel the whole, neatly stitched mess of it.

There was no response, none that she could find anyway, so she just gaped at the woman before her and picked at the skin between her thumb and forefinger and tried to listen past the buzzing in her ears.

“I don’t want you to think about this like something you’re winning or losing anymore, okay?” Ana continued gently, but certainly. “I want that to be your focus until the next time I see you.”

“Then what do I think of it as?” Michelle asked, just this side of desperate. “How am I supposed to make sense of it all?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ana responded, light in a way that Michelle wasn’t entirely sure was warranted. “But we’re going to figure it out. And until then maybe you just keep living, huh? And knowing and accepting that some days are going to be great, as if nothing ever went wrong, and some days are going to be near impossible, because sometimes that’s just what living means.”

Michelle bounced her knee, looked at the floor, and nodded.

“Sure,” she said, because what else was there to say.

“And, Michelle?”

“Yeah?”

Ana smiled at her softly. “I promise you, that no matter what that other Michelle, in that other universe has or hasn’t gone through? That this is a lesson she’s gonna have to learn at some point too.”

A single stitch, a brand new pattern.

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter includes brief and non-graphic mentions of sexual violence, solely in conversation and entirely hypothetical. None of the characters involved have been assaulted, but the past possibility of such is discussed via dialogue. 
> 
> thank you very much for stopping by <3


	5. Scavengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Noth-- is something wrong? Are you okay?”
> 
> “I’m fine,” Michelle said, gently laying a hand over his and staring into his eyes so he could see that she meant it. “But something’s wrong with you.”
> 
> Peter looked confused, brows furrowed and opening his mouth no doubt to dismiss that anything was going on when Michelle pressed forward.
> 
> “You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Recovery, Michelle understood, wasn’t a game about winning or losing.

But fuck if it still wasn’t hard to think of it that way. It would be easy, would be magical, would be the perfect end cap to a hard-fought journey to believe that her mind worked with her and not against her. That her recovery became something that was just as much as part of her before as _before_ was.

That her recovery, or the thing she was recovering from, wouldn’t define her.

The wisdom of Pepper’s words made more sense as time went on.

It didn’t _define_ her, but it had irrefutably changed her— something she had so desperately fought against at every single turn, terrified at the idea that she would never have control of herself, her feelings, her actions ever again.

She hated the alternate Michelle in another universe, raged and cried and yelled at how horrifically unfair it was that of all the Michelle Jones’ in the cosmos, of all the Michelle Jones to ever exist, that _she_ was the one who had to live with this as a fixed point in her timeline. 

She hated. She raged. She cried. 

And then she tried again the next day. 

*

Trying looked like watering the plant May got her until it was overgrown, frantically searching every website she could find to see if she was doing something wrong only to find she was doing everything right. 

(A win, if she was counting those anymore.)

Trying looked like meeting with Ana and finding that she was talking less about what she couldn’t do and more about what she could, without prompting or encouragement. 

(Wins didn’t exist. It wasn’t about winning.)

Trying looked like trying to meet up with Ned again for a movie only to chicken out at the last minute, compromising with a movie at _his_ place and ignoring the sympathetic look he would give her when he thought she wasn’t looking. 

(Losing would mean it was a game and it wasn’t a game, this was her life.)

Trying looked like learning, like growing, like _living_ — each day feeling less like obstacles and more like moments until eventually they felt like days, time passing through her fingers in a way that was consistent but not suffocating. 

Michelle tried. She tried and she tried and she tried, and with all that she tried— she started to recognize the things she hadn’t before, things that would shame her if she thought of things as a win or lose scenario. 

(She didn’t. She didn’t want to. She was trying.)

She noticed the protective way Morgan would look at her when she first walked into the room, a mutual feeling and one that Michelle was beginning to make peace with that it may never go away. 

She noticed the tightness in Betty’s smile when she made a joke that was too much, just as she saw the concern in Ned’s eyes when they talked over video chat about how she hadn’t left her apartment in a week. 

She noticed Peter, tired and exhausted and the bags under his eyes taking permanent space across his face. Maybe before she would’ve noticed, maybe not— Michelle didn’t want to think of before when she was living in the now.

(She was trying. She tried. This is what trying felt like.)

She couldn’t change how Morgan saw herself, not just because it was a responsibility that she herself wasn’t in charge of but because of the boundaries Ana had encouraged her to have-- to recognize that they both went through a traumatic experience that would forever bond them together, but to not allow each other to be the _only_ place of refuge as they moved forward.

She couldn’t change her friend’s level of comfort with her recovery, just as she couldn’t continue to censor herself too much-- another step to know that even if it was too much for them, it was still a part of her -- one that they would have to learn to adjust for themselves.

She couldn’t change Peter’s relentless and overblown sense of responsibility for the city. 

But she noticed something different with Peter, namely that when it came to sleeping at night - with her, something he had done more in the past year than the entirety of their extended relationship - he… didn’t.

Before, Michelle would’ve noticed immediately. There was a small sense of guilt there, that it took her so long to notice it this time around, a guilt she wrestled with herself before confirming with Ana that it was a guilt that she couldn’t let consume her.

Michelle wasn’t in her before. But she also wasn’t solely in her _after_ , the concept of either being just as complex as considering her recovery as a win or a loss.

It’s something she’s still thinking of when Peter is over once again, the same position they had found themselves in for months but there was a different show playing-- a decorating show that Michelle found while scrolling through Netflix, not quite bored with her favorite baking show but interested in finding something new. 

(It wasn’t a win because wins were solitary. This felt almost like progress.)

He trailed his hands alongside her arm, holding her protectively from behind as Michelle watched the hosts playfully bicker with each other - only to feel Peter’s hands start to slow and to hear his breathing deepen.

There was an instinct to just let him sleep, to count his exhaustion on his relentless schedule of patrol and working on some new patent with Otto or long nights with Tony-- but none of those excuses held up now.

It’d been snowing so heavily that it was dangerous for regular people, much less those of the ‘easily susceptible to hypothermia’ spider-kind. Peter’d been at her place on an impromptu vacation, actually getting in _her_ way as she wrote out stories for the online magazine that she’d grown to really love working for. 

(No wins. It wasn’t a win. It was a step.)

The fact that he was exhausted now at 3pm, after five days straight of doing a whole lot of nothing, set off Michelle’s curiosity-- to the point where she couldn’t continue to ignore it. 

She shifted her position on the couch, startling Peter slightly as he made room for her and blinked sleepily at her.

“‘Kay?”

“What’s wrong?”

Peter’s eyes blink a few more times until he looks more alert, sitting up slightly. Michelle made way for him and moved away from their comfortable position-- giving Peter the chance to sit up and scooch against the arm rest.

“Noth-- is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Michelle said, gently laying a hand over his and staring into his eyes so he could see that she meant it. “But something’s wrong with you.”

Peter looked confused, brows furrowed and opening his mouth no doubt to dismiss that anything was going on when Michelle pressed forward.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Peter’s mouth snapped shut, biting his lip and searching her face. For a brief moment, Michelle thought that he might lie to her or try to play it off. But the work he was doing with his own therapist paid off, exhaling deeply and shoulders sagging as he replied, “No, not really.”

“Is it nightmares? Are you hurt?” Michelle asked, already knowing that this wasn’t the case and having it confirmed when Peter shook his head.

“No,” Peter said, shifting his hand so he could take hers into his. He looked conflicted for a beat, chewing the inside of his cheek as Michelle gently tugged at his hand, bringing his gaze up to meet hers.

“It’s been going on for awhile.”

Michelle said it like a statement, rather than a question, Peter just smiling sadly before he nodded and said, “Yeah.”

Michelle waited for him to speak, having been with Peter long enough and having loved him as well as she did to recognize that the expression on his face indicated that this was something that had already been discussed with either his own therapist, with Tony, with May or maybe all of the above from the trepidation emanating off of him.

They had worked so hard at communicating and yet it never got any easier. 

(It wasn’t a loss. There are no losers in recovery, only survivors.)

“I’m a big girl, Pete. I can handle it,” Michelle said with a levity that she didn’t quite feel but worked anyway, Peter huffing out a little laugh before he squeezed her hand.

“I know, MJ. I know, I’m--” He sighed again, running his free hand through his hair before he said, “I uh, I don’t really sleep at night.”

“Yeah,” Michelle said, Peter’s eyes darting down to the couch as he said, “We uh, we cuddle. A lot more than we used to.”

Of all the things Michelle thought would’ve come out of his mouth, _that_ hadn’t been it. She floundered for a moment, Peter taking advantage of it as he continued.

“I love being close to you, MJ. That’s-- I’m so, _so_ fucking glad that we’re… still us, you know?” Peter said, meeting her eyes and looking at her with a mixture of pleading and guilt in his eyes.

“I just-- I’m still adjusting to what _us_ looks like now.”

“We used to cuddle before?” Michelle asked, a flare of insecurity rushing through her as Peter’s grip in her hand tightened slightly.

“We did,” Peter said carefully, looking as if he didn’t want to say the words but had to, “But not all night.”

It was as if everything clicked for her then, the months-- the _year_ \-- of Peter running on fumes regardless of Spider-Man or his job falling into place.

She was right, they cuddled before-- after sex mostly, affirming the other was okay before sidling off to opposite sides of the bed. 

While their sex life had progressed far beyond what it had been in those first few months of the trial, the cuddling-- the closeness on the couch and Peter holding her in his arms until she fell asleep-- was undeniably different, the pieces falling into place for why Peter wasn’t getting as much sleep at night. 

If she was into psychoanalysis, Michelle could easily have seen how the burning desire for physical intimacy during a time when sexual intimacy felt like a minefield had manifested itself into becoming more of a cuddly person when she hadn’t been before. But Michelle wasn’t, just as she recognized that this wasn’t something that she could try and decipher for herself when it was evident from the look on Peter’s face that he even struggled to share it. 

But if there was anything Michelle had learned from working with Ana for the past year, it was better to speak and get it out of the open than to hold it in. 

Which is what prompted her to ask, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want to be an asshole?” Peter said with a laugh, one that didn’t quite feel earned as he deflated. “I-- I love you, MJ. I wanted to be around you, to be-- to be _with_ you.”

“And you didn’t know how to tell me that without giving up the one thing I was okay with,” Michelle answered for him sadly, Peter immediately looking guilt-ridden as he rushed forward.

“MJ, I’m sorry. I don’t--”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Michelle said, meaning every word she said and holding her ground so Peter could see it too. His eyes danced between hers as she continued, “This is hard shit.”

Peter laughed a bit more genuinely this time, his eyes looking a little watery as he smiled and said, “Yeah it is.”

“But it’s hard shit we gotta do together,” Michelle said more definitively, bringing her free hand to cradle his face. Peter leaned into it, closing his eyes as her thumb ran over his cheek. 

“No more hiding okay?” She asked, Peter opening his eyes as he nodded. Michelle brought her hand down, Peter taking both of her hands into his.

“You too?”

(A pattern. A new routine.)

“Me too.”

*

“Okay,” Michelle said. “One more booth of your choice and then we gotta head to dinner.”

“Well, then the farmer’s market booth to end all farmer’s market booths,” Morgan declared. “Obviously.”

“Right,” Michelle laughed. “And which one is that again?”

“MJ,” she exhaled a melodramatic sigh in response. “As if you even have to _ask.”_

“Alright, alright, you little drama queen,” Michelle grinned as she began to pull Morgan by her hand down the line of vendors. “Ice cream booth it is.” 

Morgan let out an exuberant _whoop_ to that, a skip to her step as she matched Michelle’s stride, and the joy of it was a sight to see all its own. 

Because Michelle hadn’t been the only one struggling to find her place back in the world, because as much as she sometimes felt terribly lonely in this experience-- this era-- of her life, at the end of the day there still was one other person who understood. 

Morgan had faced a very different kind of trauma of course, being stuck in a locked room by herself while she knew Michelle was being tortured elsewhere in the building, but although Michelle had protected her from physical hurt during their captivity, there had been only so much she could do to stave off the psychological repercussions of that sort of isolation. 

So while Michelle had been flailing for a grip on her own life, little Morgan Stark had been too, in her own way. 

She clung to her parents more than she once had-- a fiercely independent child now anxious about attending a birthday party without Mom or Dad nearby; she spent her first couple of months back at school sobbing every night before bed, begging to stay home the next day; she had the sort of nightmares that no child her age should have been able to conjure and spent more time than Michelle knew she was made privy to begging to _please visit, MJ, Dad, I just wanna see her._

Michelle in turn had spent the past year carrying a lot more guilt in her heart than she let herself admit, and as much as she was working on not feeling guilty for everything she had put Peter through, she was also now working on not feeling guilty for not being as present for Morgan as she wished she had been. 

The trips to the farmer’s market were good for both of them, especially now, in the winter months directly following the holiday season when Morgan was feeling a touch more clingy than she had recently. 

Fresh air and people and quality time with the person who was becoming more and more like a surrogate sister with each passing day forced them out of their comfort zones just enough to feel like growth instead of harm. 

They held hands through the crowds, hardly letting go of each other the entire time they were there and snacking to their hearts’ content despite urges from Tony to not spoil their dinner. 

Morgan always brought cash from her parents, which Michelle only let her use to pay for their cab ride back to the tower so they wouldn’t have to brave the subway after dark and for a little while, together with the person they would never have to justify their more illogical fears to, they almost got to forget. 

“You want me to carry that?” Michelle asked, motioning to the tub of strawberry ice cream Morgan clutched to her chest. 

“I got it.”

“You’re gonna freeze your arms off,” Michelle chuckled, pulling her canvas tote off her shoulder and holding it open between them. “Let me carry it.” 

Morgan relented, gently placing the ice cream in Michelle’s bag, always gentle, always with the things she cared about. 

Michelle slung the bag back over her shoulder and felt her heart flip when Morgan instinctively took her hand once more because the fog in her head was slowly clearing and it was allowing her to see all the love in her life more clearly again. Again, or perhaps for the first time. 

Morgan reminded her to buckle her seatbelt in the back of the cab and spent the ride to the Tower telling her all about the project she was currently working on in art class and Michelle laughed loud and full and with a tub of strawberry ice cream in her lap. 

*

“You guys get some goodies?” May asked from the couch where she sat with Pepper the moment Michelle and Morgan stepped out of the elevator and into the penthouse. 

“It’s a surprise!” Morgan exclaimed before dropping her backpack in the middle of the floor and jumping onto her mother’s lap for a hug. 

“Apparently it’s a surprise,” Michelle shared an amused look with May as Morgan began to relay her day at school to Pepper enthusiastically. 

“Is that the girls?” Tony’s voice joins the chaos from the kitchen, followed by the clattering of pans and some quiet grumbling. 

“I think he might need help,” May laughed as she started to push herself up off of the couch, but Michelle waved her off. 

“I got it,” she said. “I need to put the surprise in the freezer anyway.”

“ _MJ! Shhh!”_ Morgan reprimanded with a comically stern face. 

“Right, sorry,” Michelle grimaced as she backed away. “I need to go put the surprise in the… Composter? Oven? Um… Wherever ice cream doesn’t go.”

She turned on her heel, grinning broadly as she was chased out of the room by Morgan’s loud but lighthearted disapproval. 

“Is that the sound of you tormenting my daughter I just heard?” Tony asked, stooped over a cutting board the moment Michelle rounded the corner. 

“Only the usual amount,” she deadpanned in response as she pulled the ice cream out of her bag and slid it into the freezer. 

Tony snorted. “Well, that’s okay then.” 

It was then that a certain tiredness finally hit Michelle. Not a bone-deep, weary exhaustion, but a general sleepiness that came from keeping an eleven-year-old entertained for multiple hours when you still weren’t entirely used to being out in the world, amongst all of the people and potential for disaster. 

Either way, however, it had her eying the coffee maker on the counter. 

“Mind if I make a pot?” she asked, already knowing the answer and moving across the kitchen towards it. 

“Yeah, pour me a cup too,” he said. And then, after a beat in which she heard his chopping slow and felt his eyes on her back. “She wear you out a bit today?” 

“Um,” Michelle hesitated as she snapped the lid shut and pressed the button to start brewing before she turned around to face him. “Not in a bad way,” she promised. “She’s-- I mean, she seems like she’s doing pretty well, right? She hasn’t just gotten better at putting on a show for me, this is a regular thing?” 

Tony smiled at her, softer than he had any right to be. 

“Yeah,” he assured her. “She’s been doing a lot better.” 

“Good, that’s good,” Michelle nodded definitively, maybe a bit more aggressively than was necessary. “I always knew she was-- resilient.” 

The coffee maker sputtered and she looked at her shoes and Tony scraped the onions from his cutting board into a pot on the stove. 

“You know,” he said, giving her a look that she might have labeled as hesitant if it had been on any face other than Tony Stark’s. “We haven’t talked about it in a while-- how _you’ve_ been doing.”

“It’s been over a year now,” Michelle shrugged in response, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the countertop. 

Tony hummed at that, acknowledging but with a hint of something else, something almost like disapproval. 

“What,” Michelle snorted. “You got something to say, there?” 

He looked at her, chewed on his tongue in contemplation, and then opened his mouth. 

“I’m gonna be sincere for…” he checked his watch. “Ninety seconds, max, and you’re not gonna tell on me for it, understand?” he pointed at her, pseudo-menacing in a way that tugged at Michelle’s level of amusement. 

“Yeah, okay,” she chuckled, watching as he seemed to steel himself, setting aside his work and turning to face her fully. 

Most of their heart-to-hearts hadn’t happened out of the blue in this way. Most of them had come about as a matter of necessity, in the middle of some sort of emotional crisis like when Michelle lost her mind in his workshop, or the time she had actively checked out of reality for a little bit too long at a dinner with him and Pepper. 

Mostly she liked Tony because he had a tendency not to drudge up the difficult conversations unless it was important, and would otherwise be content to meet her where her comfort lied-- in sarcastic quips and verbal battles for the cleverest retort. Because that’s where he was most comfortable too, after all. 

But here he was, choosing vulnerability over the rest of it, choosing Michelle’s wellbeing over anything else. 

It was a lot, but it wasn’t bad. Maybe Michelle could handle being overwhelmed sometimes if it was by feelings like this one. 

“So here’s the thing,” Tony began after a deep breath. “I just-- For other people? Yeah, a year is a long time. A year is long enough that you should stop complaining or wallowing or whatever it is they call it, right?”

Michelle hummed softly in agreement, nodding even as her arms tightened around her ribs. 

“But I’ve got a lot of years under my belt, kid,” he implored. “So when I tell you a year is nothing? A year-- in the grand fucking scheme of things-- is like a goddamn millisecond? It’s not to scare you, it’s to-- It’s to _remind you_. That I don’t care if it’s been a year or five or ten or longer. I don’t care how far along in recovery everyone else tells you you’re supposed to be. I just care that you’re being honest with someone about where you’re at and what you’re feeling.”

Michelle had to break his gaze for a brief moment, look down at her shoes again and filter out some of the intensity of the truth to his words-- the tough, but careful honesty of them. 

“That can be me, that can always be me,” Tony insisted. “Or the family or Peter or Ana-- I just. Jones, call me an old sap, but I give a shit about you and I want you to be okay.” 

Michelle, for a beat, really didn’t know how to react. 

For what it was worth, her life had been relatively absurd for probably close to a decade at that point, but that didn’t diminish the fact that somehow, against any of her many plans and expectations, Tony Stark had become not only a friend, a member of her weird amalgamation of a family, but also something of a goal post. 

He understood where she had been, and so Michelle could look at him and see at least one version of where she might be going. Living breathing proof that she might just be able to keep living and breathing. 

“Thank you,” she said, quiet and earnest as boisterous laughter filtered in from the living room. “But, um… Tony?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“I really do think I _am_ okay,” she said, brow furrowed as if just coming to that conclusion in the moment. “I think, at the very least, I can _see_ okay. You know?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, pride and understanding in the set of his shoulders. “I know.”

The coffee maker beeped to signal it was done and she pushed herself upright to grab two mugs out of the cabinet behind her head. 

Michelle Jones was going to be okay, and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel like a lie when she said it out loud. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only one chapter left in this little universe <3 
> 
> thank you all so much for sticking around and for all your lovely comments!


	6. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your body is yours,” she’d told her during one of their earlier sessions, something that had seemed so simple and yet so unfathomably complicated at the time. 
> 
> Michelle believed it today. Not always, not completely, not totally. But today she believed it. 
> 
> Today, Michelle felt good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 💖💖💖

Michelle liked sex.

She’d had several partners over her life. Some good, some bad, some memorable, some not. Yet the sex she enjoyed most was with partners who knew her, who understood her, who connected with her on a level where words didn’t matter-- all there was to know was taste and touch.

But sex now, even with a partner that perfectly fit the criteria of someone who could read her moods without saying a word, wasn’t the same-- being less blunt with their movements but blunt with their communication.

There was a part of Michelle that still missed that kind of sex-- spontaneous, hard, fast, rough-- and it was an ongoing discussion with Ana whether there would be a time when she could attempt that kind of sex again.

She hoped she could someday. Michelle did a lot better about thinking of her life as something as simple as a before and an after. It rang true about Tony’s words— that it didn’t matter how much time passed. There were still things she could do without even blinking and others that gave her pause— redirecting whatever plan she had in place to adjust to the reality she found herself in.

That this type of self-care, self-awareness, self-healing had served as a guidepost for her sex life wouldve been unfathomable to her in the first weeks with Ana— a question she still had if she would have to keep doing it for the rest of her life still echoing in the back of her mind.

But Michelle wasn’t thinking about the future at the moment.

She gasped, throwing her head back against her pillow as she clutched at the headboard behind her-- another hand tightly snarled in Peter’s hair as his tongue worked her clit mercilessly, two fingers pumping inside of her and curving _just_ right as she rocked against his face-- Peter’s other hand clutching at her thigh.

“ _Peter_ ,” Michelle rasped out just as she came, tight and tense and then immediate bliss as her limbs turned to jello, Peter’s fingers still steadily working inside of her as he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. When Michelle’s hips stuttered to a stop, she felt like she had run a marathon-- lazily opening her eyes to see Peter slip his fingers out of her before sucking them clean, smiling at her with the kind of shit eating grin that made her laugh.

“Told you I’d be quick,” Peter said with a smile, crawling up the length of her only for Michelle to put a hand up-- her open palm resting against his bare chest as she wrinkled her nose.

“Quick enough that I didn’t finish myself off, yes. But you still were out in the city with that suit,” Michelle said with a smirk, kissing the top of his nose and pressing against his chest once again as she continued, “you need a shower.”

“MJ,” Peter growled, pouting for a moment as Michelle laughed.

“Nope. Last time you did that, I couldn’t get that smell out of my comforter for weeks. _Shower_ first,” Michelle said with a wink, Peter grinning at her before kissing her gently.

“Be right back,” he whispered before moving off of her, Michelle biting back a laugh at his waddle since she felt his erection against her stomach just seconds before.

Michelle stretched slightly, an idea occurring to her that she mulled around as the water turned on. The chances of Peter taking care of his situation in the shower were high, something she wasn’t particularly worried about considering an unexpected but added benefit of his spider-powers wasn’t just super healing and super agility but a super short refractory period.

Michelle liked sex and in another life, liked shower sex. It wasn’t quick and was anything but easy, but she used to like it-- enough that it used to be a regular part of their sex life.

It wasn’t now, for obvious reasons-- and Michelle was aware of her own limitations to guess that attempting full-fledged shower sex now, surrounded by water and tile and tight spaces, wouldn’t be a good plan, not just for her own emotional well-being but for how loose she felt from the orgasm she’d just had.

But she still stood, walking over to the bathroom as she stripped herself of the t-shirt that was sticking to her now-- fully naked as she walked into the bathroom and heard Peter’s muffled pants.

“You having fun without me?” She asked slyly, holding back another laugh when she heard Peter cough from behind the curtain.

“MJ, hey. I’m just, I’ll be out in a second.”

She walked up to the curtain, gently pulling it away to see Peter-- water dripping across his back and looking up at her, only for her eyes to travel down and to see him exactly as she’d imagined him, one hand braced against the tile and another wrapped around his dick as he stroked himself.

A heat built in her lower belly as Peter continued to pump his hand even with her standing there, Michelle’s eyes lifting to meet his as she asked, “Can I join you?”

Peter stopped at that for a moment, eyes widening before he stood up a little straighter.

“Is that… are you sure?”

“Not-- I don’t think I want you to fuck me in here,” Michelle said, eyes shifting to the shower head but then back to him. The water. The tile. The closeness. Michelle knew it would be a recipe for too much, too much, _too much_ right now.

“I want to blow you,” she said, Peter’s hand moving back down to his dick as her eyes followed after him. “But I don’t think me kneeling in here is gonna work out.”

“I don’t think I’d last that long,” Peter said a little helplessly, laughing before Michelle moved to step into the shower-- only to glance at the water once more.

“If you turn it off, I can finish for you with my hand,” she said, Peter finally bringing his hand away from his dick as she continued, “If you want.”

“Fuck yeah,” Peter said in a tone that made her laugh, Michelle waiting till he turned the showerhead off-- the only water running coming from the faucet.

“If my water bill is high, I’m blaming you,” Michelle said as she stepped in, slipping her fingers between her still wet folds before using the same hand to wrap around his dick-- Peter’s eyes rolling into the back of his head as she pumped him hard, firm, like he had been doing only seconds before.

“Do whatever you want,” Peter said, his chest heaving as he braced one hand against the tile of the shower-- Michelle’s eyes drifting there only to shift back to his face, his other hand clutching at her hip.

Michelle used her free hand to run through his hair, Peter’s pants against her neck and her collarbone-- gasping herself when his mouth worked down to her breast as she pumped him harder.

“Fuck,” he said, losing his train of thought as he fucked into her hand, forehead against her shoulder as he rutted his hips against her.

“Come on Spider-Man,” Michelle whispered as Peter whined, hips rolling against her open hand as she worked her hand up and down his length— firm, quick, like he liked it. Like _she_ used to like it.

 _This_ is what she missed of shower sex, more than anything else. Shower sex was a complicated manuever of legs and limbs and lube but this-- Peter panting against her and the warmth of his body heat against her was an intimacy she hoped to rediscover, an experience she missed.

Michelle wasn’t sure if she could have that specific experience again, but she was glad they still had this-- Peter moaning out her name as he came, spilling out over the tub and Michelle stroking him until he began to soften.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispered against her collarbone, only to laugh as he lifted his head up-- dazed and blissed out in a way that made Michelle feel accomplished. “You’re incredible.”

“I know,” Michelle said, kissing him sweetly before pushing him back. “Now shower for real.”

Peter grinned mischievously, grabbing at her hip before he said, “you need a shower too now.”

“I’m fine,” Michelle said with a smirk, “I smell like _you_ , not the sewers.”

“I wasn’t in the sewers,” Peter called out as Michelle stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and looking at the messed up braid her hair was in now.

“Wouldn’t know it from how you smell, bug boy,” Michelle said, Peter laughing as the water ran again.

Michelle considered the effort of redoing her braid, only for her eyes to drift down to the hickey on her neck, smiling before she lowered the towel down to look at the rest of her body as she leaned against the sink.

The scars were still there, the curves she’d gained and lost and gained again. The swell of her hips and the curve of her breasts, the meat of her thighs and length of her neck. Michelle hadn’t shaved for a week and she was due for washing her hair.

But in that moment, Michelle felt powerful, felt strong, felt _good_ in a way that made her admire herself-- something that Ana had encouraged her to do time and time again.

“Your body is _yours_ ,” she’d told her during one of their earlier sessions, something that had seemed so simple and yet so unfathomably complicated at the time.

Michelle believed it today. Not always, not completely, not totally. But today she believed it.

Today, Michelle felt good.

She must have admired herself too long because before she knew it the water was off and the curtain pushed back before she could even react, turning back to Peter and seeing the surprised smile on his face.

“Oh for me? You shouldn’t have,” Peter said suggestively, gesturing to her still naked form as Michelle laughed as she bent down to grab the towel that had fallen down to the ground.

“Dork. Don’t get the mats wet,” she said as she handed the towel to him, Peter’s hair sticking to his forehead as he grinned.

“That’s the point of the mats, MJ,” Peter said, grabbing the towel and wiping at his hair and his face but barely anything else before dropping the towel down-- stark naked in front of her.

“Not if they’re soaked,” Michelle bounced back without any heat to it, all the heat she felt emanating from the searching look in Peter’s eyes as he stepped closer to her.

“Thought you liked being wet,” Peter said with a grin, Michelle groaning in embarrassment as Peter gently pulled her closer to him-- the feel of his hot, slick body against her doing wonderful things for the heat in her lower belly, just as she could feel him start to already get hard again when she pressed herself against him.

“That was terrible. I’m so embarrassed for you,” she said with a smile before wrapping her arms around his neck, bringing him into a sweet kiss-- only to gasp when Peter’s tongue slipped into her mouth.

“Embarrassed? Is that what you’d call it?” he huskily replied, walking them back to the bed. The shower seemed redundant now, considering where they were headed but Michelle didn’t regret it-- not when cleaning the sheets was a hell of a lot easier when it smelled like sex rather than New York City.

“What would you call it?” She asked before sucking at his bottom lip, Peter’s erection growing as she rubbed her bare hips against him. Peter groaned against her mouth, pressing his forehead against hers as his thumbs rubbed each side of her arms.

“How do you want to do this?” He asked, gentle and unhurried and part of a new routine.

Michelle smiled, leaning back on the bed as Peter watched-- eyes lazily taking in her naked form as she scooted herself towards the middle of the bed, head against where her pillows were still indented as she said, “Touch me.”

Peter crawled over to her, eyes never leaving hers as one hand braced itself against her head-- the other doing what she requested. Only for Michelle to laugh when he poked at her knee.

“Like here?”

“Little higher,” Michelle said with a smirk, only to really laugh when Peter’s hand trailed past her hips and her chest and right to her face-- Peter’s index finger poking at her cheek.

“How about this?”

“You annoy me,” Michelle said with a huff, Peter grinning only for his mouth to fall when she opened her mouth-- sucking at his finger and feeling him harden by her thigh.

“ _Fuck_ , MJ,” he said before she let loose of his fingers with a pop, smacking her lips and bringing his hand down to where she wanted him.

“That’s the plan,” she said before sighing, closing her eyes as she used Peter’s hands to touch herself-- gently circling her clit before applying more pressure, turning into a rhythm that Peter knew very well as he took the lead— Michelle moving her hand to grasp at the sheets.

“I like this plan,” Peter muttered against her neck, kissing down the length of it before taking her breast into his mouth.

His other hand stayed on the pillow, a reflex now to avoid grabbing for her hair.

A new routine. A new pattern.

Peter moved his hands to better position himself, this thumb now pressing at her clit and using his fingers to gently prod at her entrance-- Michelle opening her eyes to see Peter staring fondly at her.

“What are you--uh-- looking at?” Michelle panted out, softly moaning when the finger Peter had been teasing around her entrance slid into her easily, effortlessly, perfectly.

“The most beautiful woman in the world,” Peter murmured, Michelle rolling her eyes from the cheesiness before closing them when his finger curved _just_ right, working in and out of her slowly.

“Keira Knightley’s here?” Michelle said with a gasp when Peter slid a second finger into her, still working at a punishingly slow pace as Peter laughed.

“Keira? Really?” Peter asked, Michelle opening her eyes as she grinned. She rocked gently against his hand before she said, “Tell me _Pride and Prejudice_ didn’t do it for you.”

“ _Pride and Prejudice_ didn’t do it for me,” Peter deadpanned, Michelle’s grin turning into a laugh when he said, “ _Pirates of the Caribbean_ on the other hand…”

“True,” Michelle gasped, the hand that had moved to tighten her grip on the bed now moving to where Peter’s hands were-- wrapped around his wrist as his fingers fucked into her. “Faster.”

“I want to take my time with this,” Peter said with a wink, Michelle glaring at him only to be cut off when he answered her request anyway, moving his fingers quicker and circling her clit with his thumb.

“You suck at taking your time with things,” Michelle panted out, Peter’s grin growing wider as his fingers curved into her just right, Michelle’s hips working in tandem with the press and slide of his fingers.

“I can suck a lot of things.”

Michelle laughed into her orgasm, back arching off the bed and her other hand clutching at his bicep-- her chest heaving both from her heart racing and the stupidity of Peter’s joke.

Peter looked entirely too pleased with himself, slipping his hands out of her as Michelle leaned back against the pillow and said, “I take it back. _That_ was embarrassing. Worse than before”

Peter laughed, wiping his fingers against his thigh as he said, “Good to know I’m exceeding expectations.”

“That is not the takeaway here,” Michelle said, leaning against him as she turned to her side.

Peter’s erection was undeniable now, nudging her thigh against him as he moaned softly.

“If you want to blow me now, I won’t complain,” he said with a little huff, Michelle smirking at him as she brought a hand to his face.

“I could,” she replied, gently tracing her index finger across his face. “Or we could do something else.”

“Like?” He asked, Michelle catching the hopeful but cautious look on his face.

They hadn’t tried penetrative sex since that disastrous first time, content more to finding mutual pleasure in other ways. Sex was sex, in all its forms— Michelle believed that long before she ever worked with Ana.

But Michelle missed penetrative sex, missed the feel of Peter’s cock inside her, missed the way he’d clutch her tight and how she’d dig her heels into the back of his thighs as they rocked together.

She missed it and she wanted it and she felt— she hoped, that she was ready.

Michelle leaned forward, until their noses were almost touching when she whispered, “Make love to me.”

Peter shuddered, a hand moving to her waist as he gently passed his knuckles across the length of her.

“I really, _really_ want to,” he said carefully, always careful as his eyes searched her face, “but are you sure?”

“I think so,” she said, Peter’s hand still gently trailing up and down her side, “I’ve been thinking about it for months.”

Peter laughed at that, Michelle smirking when he said, “Damn, MJ. And you call _me_ horny?”

She shoved at his shoulder playfully before leaning forward, kissing him gently and then with a little purpose as she said, “I want to try. If you want to.”

Peter looked at her as if she hung the moon, with a love that floored her, like he would do anything for her. But there was a flag of caution that flew across his eyes before he said, “I want to. But I don’t want to hurt you.”

Michelle wasn’t naive enough to say he wouldn’t when he had already, no matter how unintended it was. But she felt confident, more grounded, more _sure_ than she’d been the first time around when she placed a hand against his chest and said, “We’ll go slow.”

“Okay,” Peter said, seeing the acceptance in his eyes. “We’ll go slow.”

“Okay,” Michelle said, smirking before nodding towards her bathroom. “So are you gonna get a condom or…?”

Peter blinked then laughed, kissing her gently before rolling off the bed and moving to the cupboard beneath her sink— Michelle having moved them there so she didn’t have to see them when she rifled through her drawer.

She trusted her birth control and trusted the commitment she shared with Peter but her request for him to rummage around the bathroom for a condom was twofold.

The first because it was better to be safe than sorry. Michelle liked kids and liked the idea of having some one day, but that wasn’t anytime soon— not wanting to place anymore baggage on a moment that was significant in and of itself.

The second had to do with herself, with the moment— another check to determine if she was truly okay with this as she slid a finger down to her clit.

Physically, she felt ready. The fact that he’d made her come twice within an hour wasn’t lost on her, just as sure that Peter would bring it up before the day’s end as she lazily circled her clit.

Emotionally, she felt more ready than she had the first time around— the significance of the moment pressing on in the back of her mind but no warning bells ringing to prevent her from wanting to move forward.

Michelle liked sex. She _wanted_ to have penetrative sex. She also didn’t want to _rush_ it, if she wasn’t ready.

Yet all she felt when Peter came back into bed, stroking himself and sliding the condom on, was anticipation - a good kind of nervous that she hadn’t felt in years.

“How do you want to do this?” Peter asked again, leaning on his side. “Do you want to be on top?”

“Maybe. If you’ll last that long,” Michelle said, grabbing at his hip and sliding herself closer, “remember our first time?”

Peter frowned, Michelle smirking at him as she hitched a leg over his hip, reaching down between to stroke him as he said, “why would you bring that up _now_?”

“Because,” Michelle said, guiding his length across her center, still wet and wanting from when he’d fingered her, “it’s good to keep your ego in check.”

Peter huffed out a laugh and then a moan, Michelle’s thumb brushing across his tip before positioning him at her entrance— Peter’s eyes snapping open.

His gaze locked onto hers, holding steady as he slowly, gently pushed in— Michelle letting out a soft exhale as he brought a hand to her hip, the other hand tightly clutching the pillow.

He rocked his hip slowly, gently, letting her adjust to him before he slowly pulled out and asked, “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Michelle replied, moving her own free arm to slide under his, clutching at his back. Her other hand was pressed to her side, thumb grazing across his lip as she said, “Do it again.”

He did what she asked, slowly pushing in again until he bottomed out, eyelids fluttering from the intensity of it.

 _“Fuck_ ,” he whispered, Michelle softly laughing before it turned into a pant as she rocked her hips with him— the push and pull of him turning into a punishingly slow rhythm.

“Still okay?” He asked, Michelle nodding in assent as she sighed. It was more than okay, the feel of him moving inside her— the stretch just as mind numbingly good as she remembered as they moved together. Peter’s tongue and his fingers were excellent but it was this that she had missed, a fullness of having _him_ inside of her.

“Better than okay” She said, Peter smiling at her before rolling his hips, Michelle inhaling sharply only for Peter to freeze.

“Is—”

“No that’s good,” she said, nodding and keeping her eyes open. “It’s good. Keep— yeah, like that,” she exhaled, closing her eyes as Peter continued to move, working her own hips in tandem with his as she tightened her thigh’s grip over his hip.

It felt almost too good to be true that the two of them were doing this, that they were crossing another boundary that had felt so far out of reach for so long if it weren’t for the constant checks with each other. Of the same kind of blunt communication that they had cultivated over the past few months, of eyes open and searching and lips meeting every so often— Peter’s slow but steady pace starting to drive her wild.

She wanted more. She _needed_ more. And for the first time in a long time, Michelle felt ready for more, more _, more_.

“Peter. I— I need—”

“What do you want?” Peter grunted, his arm now having moved past her hip and clutching at her back— palm open and hips rocking steadily into her, “any— anything you want.”

“I wanna be on top,” Michelle panted, Peter releasing his grip on her as Michelle pushed him forward and onto his back— bracing herself over him without once losing eye contact.

She lifted her hips, then sunk back down— Peter’s hands gripping at her thighs as she started to roll her hips with his.

“What now?” He panted, smoothing his hands over her hips and letting her take the lead, moving with the push and pull of their bodies in a way that was so familiar, so good, so _them._

“ _Touch me_ ,” Michelle gasped, Peter moving a hand to her clit as she started to bounce on him, closing her eyes as Peter started to babble out nonsense.

“You feel so good, MJ. It’s you. It’s _always_ you. You’re so good, so tight— _fuck_ ,” he said, Michelle snapping her eyes open to watch as he threw his head back, inhaling sharply as his hips thrusted up and into her.

A little less careful. A little more relaxed. Only for Peter to force his eyes open and back to her as he started to whisper her name.

“You’re beautiful, Em. Perfect, so— so fucking perfect.”

“Yeah, I know,” Michelle said with a laugh, only for it to turn into a cry when he tilted his hips a certain way.

The angle of it was perfect, saying as much as she continued to move— collapsing down onto him until they were chest to chest, grinding herself into him as Peter’s chest blossomed out the same familiar shade of pink.

“Are you close?” Peter asked as he opened his eyes, Michelle nodding only to moan as the hand that had been working at her clit moved to grip her ass.

“Okay?”

“Fuck yes,” Michelle almost whined, burrowing her head into his neck and grinding down hard and fast— Peter moving his other hand to brace them on each side, moaning as he pulsed his hips into her while simultaneously grinding her over him.

The position was perfect, hips alternating from rubbing against her clit and at hitting an angle that made her see stars— Michelle’s fingers digging into the pillow and snarling themselves into his hair as she panted out his name.

It was hard but it wasn’t rough— a chase for a release that was just barely at the surface. Peter whispered filthy things into her ear, telling her all about what he imagined when he touched himself, how much he loved her and loved fucking her before his own breath started to hitch from being unable to focus.

Michelle knew he was close from the shade of pink across his chest and the strain in his eyes, lifting her head to tell him that it was okay if he came first when he hit an angle just right— her third orgasm taking her completely by surprise as she came with a gasp, heart pounding so hard that she thought it was gonna jump out of her chest.

Peter let out a choked out gasp, riding out her orgasm until he clutched at her ass once more- Michelle burrowing her head into his neck as he pulsed into her.

He came when Michelle’s heart was still beating a thousand miles a minute, lifting her head to watch his eyes close and for him to let go as he filled the condom.

She panted, their chests heaving against each other until Peter finally opened his eyes, Michelle feeling him start to soften inside her as he grinned— Michelle smiling back at him.

The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on either of them, but she could see the teasing in his eyes— cheeks flushed, hair still sticking to his forehead and looking at her as if she was the only person in his world.

“What?” She asked, knowing that of the dozens of things that he could say that if she knew Peter Parker as well as she did, that it could range from incredibly cheesy to incredibly sweet.

It ended up being the former as he said, “That makes three to two. You’re running behind, Jones.”

Michelle took a beat, only to laugh at him and how well she knew him for keeping tabs of their orgasms as she rolled off of him— actually giggling as she said, “It’s not a competition, Parker.”

“If it was,” Peter said with a grin and a wink. “I’d be winning.”

She laughed as he kissed her and laughed even more as he rolled off the bed, waddling to the bathroom to tie off and throw away the condom.

Michelle took a moment to stare up at the ceiling, feeling good, feeling _accomplished_ as she smiled.

She’d never told Peter about the concept of winning or losing when it came to her recovery, a part of her wondering now if she should— if it mattered. Peter’s comment did nothing but remind her of how far she’d come since then, a step forward, another small beat towards progress.

Life wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a competition. There was no such thing as a “win”.

Michelle was just living.

*

When Michelle woke up the next day, it was to Sunday morning light filtering through her curtains and the quiet snores of one Peter Parker-- naked on his stomach and with his face half buried in his pillow.

She had slept a hard, dreamless sleep and woke up feeling the sort of heaviness in her limbs that had become rare in the past year, the good kind of heaviness, the kind that pointed towards contentedness rather than debilitating exhaustion.

Michelle rolled onto her side so she could get a proper look at Peter’s sleeping face, the lax muscles, the hint of drool at the corner of his lip, and she couldn’t help but smile. These were her favorite mornings, when the world went quiet and she could just melt into the more comfortable parts of human existence.

Like a heavy comforter draped across their bodies, or the snug warmth of his presence in her space, or just him-- period, end of sentence.

In recent weeks, Michelle had started noticing that moments like this one, as she pulled the blanket farther up his back where it had slung low on his hips in the night, were becoming less about grounding herself back in reality.

Less about grabbing ahold of him as a means of pulling herself out of somewhere far worse, far colder and more frightening and gruesome. Because she had started waking up in the morning with the intention of living instead of the desperate grasping for mere survival that had become painfully routine.

Because although some days still presented mere existence as a challenge, she was seeing an upward trend in the good days. And as the good days became more frequent, so did Michelle’s ability to look at Peter and see the man she loved rather than the man who had saved her.

It was starting to become terribly obvious, the way she wanted to spend her life with that man-- not with Spider-Man or the part-time Avenger who had dragged her out of Hell-- but Peter Parker, with his stupid snoring and the drool at the corner of his mouth.

Michelle snuck quietly out of bed, careful not to wake him as she pulled on a robe and thick socks and padded her way to the kitchen. She made two steaming mugs of coffee-- one with cream and one without-- and returned to bed with a lightness in her chest that put the morning sun to shame.

One mug on the bedside table and one in hand, she held it close to his face knowing the smell alone would be enough to wake him. The abrupt halt to his snoring and sleepy smack of his lips told her she was right.

“Either you made coffee or we have some sort of caffeine gremlin living in the kitchen,” he murmured before he had even opened his eyes.

“We do have a caffeine gremlin,” she responded lightheartedly. “His name’s Peter.”

He cracked open one eye, smirk playing at his lips as he said, “Harsh.”

“I tell it how it is,” Michelle deadpanned as he wrapped an arm around her waist and nuzzled his face against her hip where she sat up against the headboard. She ran featherlight fingertips across his forearm as he kissed the curve of her hip. “You know this is your coffee I’m drinking right?”

“Noooooo,” he laughed softly into the fabric of her robe.

“Mmhmm,” she hummed, enamored with him and glowing with it. “Better sit up here soon or I’ll finish it.”

She lifted the mug to her lips slowly, giving Peter enough time to shoot up and snatch the mug out of her hand with a quick peck to her cheek.

“Good morning,” he said before taking a long drink from his mug, visibly relishing in it.

And Michelle couldn’t help it, couldn’t resist scooting closer to him, curling up against his side and pressing a quick kiss to his bare shoulder and taking his free hand in the both of hers. Some of the goofiness fell out of his posture when she did that, kissing the top of her messy hair in response.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said, running her fingers across his, studying the lines of blue veins beneath warm skin. “For a while now.”

“Yeah?” he questioned, beginnings of a smile tugging at every muscle in his face.

“Is it too early to talk about important things or are you up?” she asked, struck by a sudden, passing feeling of insecurity as she studied his face.

“I’ve got coffee and I’ve got you,” he said, a look in his eyes that meant he was fully aware what a sap he was being. “I think I’m good.”

Michelle nodded though, letting the opportunity to tease him for it pass her by without grabbing on, and took a breath. Peter squeezed her hand.

“You remember before?” she began without looking him in the eye, instead focusing on their intertwined fingers in her lap. “Right before-- Early October of that year-- We talked about, um, potentially looking for a place. An apartment.”

She felt him lean away for a moment, heard the sound of his mug being gently placed on the bedside table, and then felt his hand as it carefully tipped up her chin so she was looking him right in his face.

Peter Parker was smiling-- hopeful and joyful and in love. With her of all people.

“Are we-- reopening that discussion?” he asked.

“I mean, um,” Michelle floundered. “We both have quite a while left on our leases and I’m not, like, sure I want it to be a _right away_ sort of thing, but-- I’m ready to start talking about it again. I’m ready to-- to make plans again, I think… If you are.”

Her heart was beating fast, and her palms were a little bit sweatier than the temperature in the room called for, but not in a bad way, never in a bad way with the way he was looking at her.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, Em, I-- I’m ready to make plans.”

The first time they had discussed it, this next step, it had been obvious and natural and easy. It had been something that they had both known was an inevitability without having to talk about it first, and the first time they had talked about it hadn’t felt all that out of the ordinary.

Of course they would live together, of course they would take that leap, because they were a part of each other’s lives in as permanent a way as two twenty-three year olds living in the time of superheroes and alien invasions could have been.

But this time wasn’t an inevitability anymore. It was bigger and felt as such in the moment if only because it wasn’t some intangible fate-- it was a choice.

It got hard, but they stayed together-- that was a choice.

She forced him to leave and shut the door behind him, but he came back when she was ready-- that was a choice.

They got the help they needed, separately and together, from every source available until they were unconcerned with closeness and intimacy and touch-- that was a choice.

Michelle grinned and cupped his cheek in her hand and kissed him. That was a choice too.

“Do you think we can afford someplace with a bathtub?” she asked, letting him wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her close.

“I dunno,” he said offhandedly. “But we can plan to try for it.”

They were making plans for an uncertain future and they were making plans to be together through that uncertainty.

That was their choice.

*

It took them a while to get out of bed, to stop relishing in each other’s warmth and kissing along cheeks and lips and collar bones-- chaste in a way that had no intention of leading anywhere despite their continued nakedness, but giddy all the same.

They argued over whose mattress they would use when they moved and bickered about Peter’s tendency to leave unwashed dishes in the sink and laughed a little hysterically over the fact that they were discussing it at all, no matter how far off it might still have been, they were _talking about it._

Eventually though, they ventured out to the kitchen in search of food and coffee refills only to discover that Michelle was out of milk and eggs.

“And to think I was gonna make you a really, very delicious morning-after omelette,” Peter groused, letting Michelle slip her arms around his waist from behind so she could peek over his shoulder into the refrigerator.

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” Michelle deadpanned.

“Omelettes are an all-day food, MJ,” he turned his head, craning his neck to look at her. “And if you don’t agree I really don’t see how this is gonna work.”

“ _That’s_ where you’re gonna draw your line?” she grinned at him.

“Might be!” he replied, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice as she pulled away and he turned to face her.

“Well, if the fate of our relationship is at stake,” Michelle used the hairtie around her wrist to pull her curls up into a messy ponytail. “I guess I gotta go pick up some eggs.”

Something subtle in his posture changed, and although she could see him as he actively tried not to point out the rarity that still was her voluntary offer to go out on her own, she knew that they were both aware of it.

“I can come with you,” he offered, undemanding but assured in his proposition.

“That’s alright,” she brushed him off, feeling him trail behind her as she moved to the living room and pulled her coat from the hook, tucked her feet into her boots. “I’ll just go to that bodega-- the one that’s just a block up? It’ll give you a chance to respond to that message from Otto you’ve been itching to read all morning.”

About a half-dozen different reactions played out across his face where he leaned in the doorway to the kitchen before he landed on curious.

“How did you--”

“Your work text tone has been different from your personal text tone for like seven years, dude,” Michelle laughed as she finished tucking one final button shut on her coat.

A grin pulling at his face, Peter joked, “It’s almost like you’re observant for a living or something.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled as she crossed the room towards him. “Or something.”

She kissed his cheek, kissed his lips, smiled at the way he tried to chase down one more kiss as she pulled away, and then walked back towards the front door.

“Be back soon,” she said over her shoulder as casually as she could manage which was, in fact, considerably more casual than she’d accomplished in recent months. Maybe it was the honesty of it, maybe sometimes truth-- truth of love and truth of self-confidence-- made things less complicated instead of more.

 _Maybe,_ she thought, as she caught sight of Peter’s soft face past the door closing behind her.

Michelle locked the door (one, two, three) and took the stairwell to the ground floor (three flights down) and watched the front door to her building fall shut behind her (listened to its automatic lock click).

She tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat, hunched up her shoulders closer to her ears at the brisk February air, and stepped into the flow of foot traffic.

Michelle was buzzing, with the residual anxiety of the current task at hand, yes, but also with a number of other fresh and exciting emotions.

She was warm with the knowledge that a half-naked Peter Parker awaited her return home, the memory of the night before and all of the good that came along with that, the satisfaction of a mutually pleasurable endeavor.

She was grateful even, as she startled at the sound of a young girl squealing across the street, because Michelle was able to stave off complete panic until she had a moment to catch sight of the girl, laughing brightly as she rode atop her father’s shoulders.

The fact of the matter was, Michelle Jones was having a good day, and despite how small that may have seemed to an outsider, how insignificant, she still knew that the ability to acknowledge that, to be aware of her own joy, was monumental.

Because she knew now, that good days weren’t forever, and bad days weren’t the end of the world, and despite how good or bad, how better or worse each coming day was, she was still going to keep living through them.

A brief pause after she crossed the street to pick up a paper at the newsstand next door to the bodega and check the headlines-- none of which featured her name or face, not even below the fold-- and then Michelle was ducking into the small shop and relishing in the heat.

A carton of eggs, a jug of milk, and a box of condoms (because it was easier to be optimistic on the good days, because it was easier to lean into that optimism than it once had been) found their way into her reusable shopping bag as she paid.

“Hope you’re heading home soon,” the cashier behind the counter said as she scanned Michelle’s items. “Supposed to be getting quite a bit of snow here later.”

She was a different employee than Michelle had gotten to know, back when she had frequented this place, back before. It was kind of nice, the inherent fresh start of interacting with a stranger.

“Yeah,” Michelle said, unable to keep the breath of laughter out of her voice. “Think I’m gonna be in for the day.”

She grabbed a couple of bags of chocolate from the rack by the register and added them to her collection of items.

“Good,” the cashier smiled at her as she handed over bag and receipt. “Stay warm.”

“You too,” Michelle grinned right back, and it was a good day.

The bell on the door tinkled as she stepped outside, and it was a good day.

Across the street and one block south-- back to warmth, back to Peter, back to home.

And it was a good day.

_**End.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We can't believe we've made it to the end and we can't thank you guys enough for sticking with us on this ride and for all your lovely comments. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the conclusion to this little universe <3
> 
> Love,  
> Seek & Prem
> 
> (also a little BTS: seek screamed because prem wrote a single line in RPANS about Peter making MJ come three times in one night and that may or may not have led to ~~more screaming~~ a conversation on this and recovery and then a 30k+ story anyway thank you and good night)

**Author's Note:**

> We love it when people scream at us in the comments.


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